The End of My Career, by Martha Grover
Perfect Day Publishing, 2016
The New Deal (of my books): I'm reading books from my to-read shelf, because darn it, they need to be read. Afterward, I'll write a post here: not a review, just a reaction to something or many things in the book. It is keeping me accountable, and will continue to do so.
Page 58 says this:
6. LINK
I ask my father to read an article about male entitlement and emotional labor.
"Can you just tell me what it says?" he says.
That's it.
Pow.
"Couches" is an essay about Grover's, as she calls it, "year of suspenseful illness, while I waited to see if the drug worked, while I got slightly sicker and sicker." Several friends gave her keys to their apartments so she could have several couches in several neighborhoods available for her to crash on as her body gave out at various intervals each day. She is "exhausted and dehydrated from bouts of diarrhea from the experimental drug that I injected each morning and night." And yet. The essay closes with this:
"I enjoyed it. That's something I've never told anyone. That year was one of the best years of my life."
What a narrative. What a popping and soothingly different narrative.
Next up: Hi, This Is Conchita, by Santiago Roncagliolo, tr. Edith Grossman