5 Book Reviews You Need to Read This Week

Among the most interesting critical takes of the week, Parul Sehgal writes that Terese Marie Mailhot’s Heart Berries “has a mixture of vulnerability and rage, sexual yearning and artistic ambition, swagger and self-mockery that recalls Chris Kraus’s I Love Dick”; Renée Graham examines Patrisse Khan-Cullors and Asha Bandele’s powerful and timely Black Lives Matter memoir; and Cat Marnell praises Erica Garza’s Getting Off, a memoir that “shines light on the lonely (albeit impressively multi-orgasmic) world” of sex and porn addiction.

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“Terese Marie Mailhot’s memoir is a sledgehammer … Phantoms speak throughout Mailhot’s book — they speak through her. She began working on it when she had herself committed after a breakdown. She wrote her way out of the chaos of her past … Heart Berries has a mixture of vulnerability and rage, sexual yearning and artistic ambition, swagger and self-mockery that recalls Chris Kraus’s I Love Dick … So much of what Mailhot is moving toward here still feels nascent — the book wants a tighter weave, more focus. But give me narrative power and ambition over tidiness any day.”

-Parul Sehgal on Terese Marie Mailhot’s Heart Berries (The New York Times)

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“No heartwarming tale of pet ownership, The Friend presents a meditation on the raw experience of losing someone who is neither lover nor family yet who occupies a distinctive place in the lives of those left behind … With enormous heart and eloquence, Nunez explores cerebral responses to loss — processed through the writer’s life — while also homing in on the physical burden felt by those left behind … Nunez offers no easy solutions; instead, she offers the solace that comes from accepting change. Friendship comes with the possibility of great joy and deep sorrow. Surviving suicide throws us into a realm outside words. The Friend exposes an extraordinary reserve of strength waiting to be found in storytelling and unexpected companionship.”

-Lauren LeBlanc on Sigrid Nunez’s The Friend (The Minneapolis Star Tribune)

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“In When They Call You a Terrorist, Khan-Cullors recalls the shame she felt as a child for her silence in the face of racial injustice. Her deeply felt memoir is a blueprint of how that silence exploded into a scream heard around the world … Co-written by poet and journalist Asha Bandele, this personal and political book, subtitled ‘A Black Lives Matter Memoir,’ is also timely. It comes during a still-unfolding moment when women are demanding to be heard… She learned early all the ways African-Americans are barred at the door, and how their lives are under constant threat from the police, the government, and the institutions that are intended to protect but instead oppress … Yet what she also experiences is the strength of a community that understands it can best take care of its own … Like Baldwin, Khan-Cullors wants only for her nation to live up to its ideals, and afford everyone the same opportunities and protections.”

-Renée Graham on Patrisse Khan-Cullors and Asha Bandele’s When They Call You a Terrorist (The Boston Globe)

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“As well as making sense of the extraordinary, O’Farrell’s expertise lies in finding significance in the ordinary, making connections and finding clarity where most might find fog … O’Farrell hopscotches across the decades, offering us a series of hugely evocative vignettes that point to multiple lives and identities. Thus, we meet her as a daughter, a student, an office worker, a mother, a wife and a traveller. We are privy to various moods and mindsets: in love, heartbroken, lonely, restless, rebellious, scared, purposeful. I Am, I Am, I Am isn’t purely about peril, it’s about the life lived either side of it. These snapshots, shared in extreme closeup, reveal a thoughtful and determined writer who, despite frequent trauma, remains resilient and unbowed.”

-Fiona Sturges on Maggie O’Farrell’s I Am, I Am, I Am (The Guardian)

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“The memoir shines light on the lonely (albeit impressively multi-orgasmic) world of a woman who binges not on food or pills, but on hookups and ‘getting off’ …her prose is appealingly no-frills and accessible. She writes in the style of one who knows better than to linger too long on the eroticism of her memories — one who has learned the hard way how crucial it is to keep dangerous rushes of euphoric recall in check … As a narrator, Garza is a master of identifying such dark, postcoital feelings as these … We’ve all been there, and in reading Garza’s insight into her own experiences, we better understand ourselves … But the strong final chapters, sublimely set in Southeast Asia, are both inspirational and, dare I say it, still pretty kinky. God bless a lost person who has found her way. Thanks for sharing, Erica.”

-Cat Marnell on Erica Garza’s Getting Off (The New York Times Book Review)