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Panic Blood
Eva, a French singer living in Manhattan, becomes worried when Frank Jackson, the father of Eva's daughter, Mimi, returns demanding a chance to get to know the girl
- GenresFiction
Hardcover
Published April 25, 1990
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 25, 2019
I am sort of surprised that there are no written reviews of this book. So I'm the pioneer. Short review: Compelling.
There is a whole lot going on in this book, which was published in 1990. Sometimes it is like reading a bunch of random thoughts about sex, motherhood, relationships, growing up, AIDS, voodoo, and generally life jumbled into the life of one person. But I guess that makes sense since people deal with all the elements of their life at the same time even if they are not directly connected. The book comes at you in short segments and machine-gun like rapidity. It is kind of like telling various facets of a story and suddenly inserting concepts that appear out of nowhere. Yet, I had to complete it because it drew me in.
The main character is Eve and she has a 6 year old daughter named Mimi. There is also this roommate or mother figure named Albertine. Eve is a French immigrant scraping by in New York's inner city. Mimi is the daughter of Eve's first boyfriend Frank, who left her before the child was born. We find out later he was/is a real a**hole. Six years later Eve is with a new boyfriend Johnny who is a struggling musician with his own set of flaws but a better grasp on tenderness. Oh, but the sex is really, really good too!
About the sex: It can be rather descriptive and explicit. The first few pages of the book may unsettle some readers. Be forewarned. Once you're onto about page 10 you'll be on your way.
Back to the story line: Unexpectedly, Frank comes back in the picture and creeps Eve out. He demands to spend time with the daughter he never met. Eve fights that request as hard as she can and has plenty of choice words for Frank and his sperm that led to the pregnancy (Yup, most certainly). She even sees a voodoo practitioner to see if anything can be done to repel his aggressiveness. Unfortunately, Frank takes an unexpected opportunity to kidnap Mimi while she is under the care of Albertine. The last part of the book is about Eve's efforts to find her daughter and the emotional trauma it puts her through. At this point and at points throughout the book she questions whether she's even a good mother in the first place.
That's the main plot of the story with hopefully few spoilers.
As I stated at the beginning of my comments, throughout the novel, we get a sense of what it is like living in the city under clearly challenging conditions filled with so many things probing or tugging from all angles. Sometimes, the book is presented in a sort of "jump-through-time" fashion where we glimpse at Mimi as an adult and then back as a child. There are distant memories that haunt Eve's mind about her time in France and her own family relationships. And Albertine has her own set of family relationship issues that do impact the overall tone of the book.
Not that AIDS has gone away but when this book was published it was mostly an immediate death sentence. Today, there are treatments so that part of the puzzle seems dated.
The biggest complaint I have is that all of the dialogue is presented without quotation marks and that can be a little distracting. I have to think to myself - are the characters talking or thinking about the matter at hand?
A very unique reading experience.
There is a whole lot going on in this book, which was published in 1990. Sometimes it is like reading a bunch of random thoughts about sex, motherhood, relationships, growing up, AIDS, voodoo, and generally life jumbled into the life of one person. But I guess that makes sense since people deal with all the elements of their life at the same time even if they are not directly connected. The book comes at you in short segments and machine-gun like rapidity. It is kind of like telling various facets of a story and suddenly inserting concepts that appear out of nowhere. Yet, I had to complete it because it drew me in.
The main character is Eve and she has a 6 year old daughter named Mimi. There is also this roommate or mother figure named Albertine. Eve is a French immigrant scraping by in New York's inner city. Mimi is the daughter of Eve's first boyfriend Frank, who left her before the child was born. We find out later he was/is a real a**hole. Six years later Eve is with a new boyfriend Johnny who is a struggling musician with his own set of flaws but a better grasp on tenderness. Oh, but the sex is really, really good too!
About the sex: It can be rather descriptive and explicit. The first few pages of the book may unsettle some readers. Be forewarned. Once you're onto about page 10 you'll be on your way.
Back to the story line: Unexpectedly, Frank comes back in the picture and creeps Eve out. He demands to spend time with the daughter he never met. Eve fights that request as hard as she can and has plenty of choice words for Frank and his sperm that led to the pregnancy (Yup, most certainly). She even sees a voodoo practitioner to see if anything can be done to repel his aggressiveness. Unfortunately, Frank takes an unexpected opportunity to kidnap Mimi while she is under the care of Albertine. The last part of the book is about Eve's efforts to find her daughter and the emotional trauma it puts her through. At this point and at points throughout the book she questions whether she's even a good mother in the first place.
That's the main plot of the story with hopefully few spoilers.
As I stated at the beginning of my comments, throughout the novel, we get a sense of what it is like living in the city under clearly challenging conditions filled with so many things probing or tugging from all angles. Sometimes, the book is presented in a sort of "jump-through-time" fashion where we glimpse at Mimi as an adult and then back as a child. There are distant memories that haunt Eve's mind about her time in France and her own family relationships. And Albertine has her own set of family relationship issues that do impact the overall tone of the book.
Not that AIDS has gone away but when this book was published it was mostly an immediate death sentence. Today, there are treatments so that part of the puzzle seems dated.
The biggest complaint I have is that all of the dialogue is presented without quotation marks and that can be a little distracting. I have to think to myself - are the characters talking or thinking about the matter at hand?
A very unique reading experience.
June 17, 2021
This is a very original book that does not attempt to follow a formula but sets it own unique path. There are many extraordinary passages that work at the highest level of literature, others that unfortunately fall flat, and others that just appear outdated. There is a lot of very explicit pornographic content that can be quite shocking especially the telephone sex which is hard core misogyny in places. The characters are well described and interact well in a believable self destructive manner. I felt sometimes that I was reading a James Baldwin novel given the intense emotions being described. However, what this novel needed was a strong editor to trim some aspects of the book that just distracted and lost credibility and sympathy with the characters. The section on voodoo for instance could have been dropped without impacting the rest of the book. Also the episodes relating to the stalker did not work given a few clumsy plot holes that just do not stand up to scrutiny. I will seek to read a few more books by Catherine Texier as I feel there is a real authentic voice here looking for the perfect novel.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews