Real Life in What's the Name of That Book???

Apr 15, 2020 Trin rated it it was ok

Shelves: queerlit, american-lit, 2020s, fiction

There's some beautiful writing in this, and I found the descriptions of life in a graduate science program fascinating. But I also found myself becoming more and more frustrated as I read, and I finally realized it was because every single conversation in this book is combative. Whether with the main character's boss, work rival, friends, or lover -- every convo starts from a place of anger or mean-spiritedness.

Some of this feels intentional, and very much in character for Wallace, the protagon ...more

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Apr 29, 2020 Sophia rated it really liked it

Shelves: mainstreamfiction, borrowed, 2020

Compelling, with some very powerful moments and dynamics. The grad school milieu reminded me a lot of the high energy stasis of law school, and I was glad I’d been to a big Midwestern town in summer before because I really got the atmosphere. Despite its length, some of it feels like it could have had more depth, and the ending wasn’t as strong as I would have liked — I think I need to start reading books by older authors, because so many younger ones have great initial insights and powerhouse p ...more

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Mar 16, 2020 Misha rated it really liked it

Shelves: alcoholism, doorway-prose, academia, doorway-people, read-2020, lgbtqia, poc-author, rape, black-american, debut

This is a brutally frank campus novel in the vein of Sally Rooney's Normal People. Similarly, it is centered on characters who feel unmoored in some way in the world, haunted by the past, and haunted by the abuse they suffered in their youth from their families and others.

Wallace is a biochem student, a black queer man who floats uneasily among his group of white friends. He suffers silently as the slings and arrows of racism and fat-shaming come his way from others, until he can be silent no lo This is a brutally frank campus novel in the vein of Sally Rooney's Normal People. Similarly, it is centered on characters who feel unmoored in some way in the world, haunted by the past, and haunted by the abuse they suffered in their youth from their families and others.

Wallace is a biochem student, a black queer man who floats uneasily among his group of white friends. He suffers silently as the slings and arrows of racism and fat-shaming come his way from others, until he can be silent no longer. His relationship with fellow student, a self-identified straight boy, is fraught, and a meditation on desire, violence, and reality.

Some lovely lines, although I will admit this is not the book I quite wanted to be reading at the beginning of a #coronavirus quarantine as it is at times quite bleak with shades of Yanagihara's A Little Life.

"It always seemed to him that when people were sad for you, they were sad for themselves, as if your misfortune were just an excuse for them to feel what it was they wanted to feel. Sympathy was a kind of ventriloquism." (32)

"People can be unpredictable in their cruelty." (78)

"What Roman is referring to is instead a deficiency of whiteness, a lack of some requisite sameness. This deficiency cannot be overcome. The fact is, no matter how hard he tries or how much he learns of how many skills he masters, he will always be provisional in the eyes of these people, no matter how they might be fond of him or gentle with him." (161-2)

"Wallace pauses, still in Miller's arms. There will always be this moment. There will always be good white people who love him and want the best for him but who are more afraid of other white people than of letting him down. ...No matter how good they are, no matter how loving, they will always be complicit, a danger, a wound waiting to happen. There is no amount of loving that will ever bring Miller closer to him in this respect. There is no amount of desire. There will always remain a space between them, a space where people like Roman will take root and say ugly, hateful things to him. It's the place in every white person's heart where their racism lives and flourishes, not some vast open plain but a small crack, which is all it takes." (188)

"This is perhaps why people get together in the first place. The sharing of time. The sharing of the responsibility of anchoring oneself in the world. Life is less terrible when you can just rest for a moment, put everything down and wait without having to worry about being washed away. People take each other's hands and they hold on tight as they can, they hold on to each other and to themselves, and when they let go, they can because they know that the other person will not." (312) ...more

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Sep 28, 2020 Ray rated it really liked it

I liked this book as both a novel I enjoyed reading AND a significant contribution to the queer canon.

In terms of the canon, as the main character Wallace says in various contexts throughout the book, if a white person had written this, it would automatically be vaulted right up there with Holleran, et al. and the Violet Quill Gang.

That's not to say it's a perfect novel--which is also the case with Dancer from the Dance. However, white gay authors who contribute something new (think Scott Heim a ...more

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Feb 23, 2021 Ellen rated it really liked it

Shelves: borrowed, 2021

In addition to being lovely and heartrending, this book filets Nice White Midwestern culture like a fish and you know what? As someone in that culture, I think he's right and he should say it. ...more

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Sep 08, 2021 Marigold rated it it was ok

Shelves: black-writers, fiction-2010-2020, themes-race, bipoc-writers, literary-fiction, read-during-pandemic, lgbtq, heavy

This two star review is based entirely on my enjoyment of the book - or lack thereof - and isn't related to the writing, which is beautifully crafted and intense. This is a novel that really explores pain and trauma and the desperate ennui of "real life", and the many ways we protect ourselves and keep each other at a distance so we can survive. It's sad and intensely observed. Very heavy going. ...more

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