Reviewed by nannah on
This is perhaps the most distasteful wreck of a novel I've ever finished--and I only did finish because I wanted to see if it ever got better. Or to see how much worse it could get. It's obvious this wasn't ever meant to be disability representation. Rather, it's meant for able-bodied, neurotypical readers to read about us disabled people and go, "oh wow, look at these strange crazy things, haha!"
Book content warnings:
ableism!!
ableist slurs
sexism
racism
racist slurs
homophobia (& homophobic violence)
suicide
self harm
drug addiction
(probably more; forgive me if I forgot anything!)
The nameless protagonist, a past porn star, wakes up in the burn ward of a hospital after a car crash. His once flawless skin is covered with burns; his penis has to be removed. He slumps into deep depression until Marianne Engel, a mentally ill woman comes to visit, telling him stories of love and of a past he and she supposedly shared together in the 1300s. The more she visits, the more he learns about love and the more he begins to see life and his body in a new way.
I picked this book up in the hopes that it would somehow be like Tarsem Singh's masterpiece movie The Fall (in which a suicidal disabled man in the hospital is visited by a little girl; he tells her stories, and they grow to be good friends and learn more about hope and love, etc.).
Unfortunately, no such luck here.
The nasty stuff starts right away--as early as p.17. "I had no idea whether she was Chinese or Japanese or Vietnamese; she just had Asian skin color and eyes and she was barely as tall as I."
. . . Asian skin color and eyes. I . . . don't even know how to deal with the ignorance and racism of this phrase. I'm not even sure Andrew Davidson knows what countries are included in Asia to be honest (Asia doesn't consist of just Eastern-Asian countries . . . but also of countries like India, Thailand, Cambodia, etc.), which are home to many darker-skinned people . . .
The very unlikable protagonist also calls a Japanese woman by a racist slur, and then backpedals for a huge half-page paragraph in his internal monologue, going into why he chose that particular slur, why he's not racist really, etc. etc. etc. It sounds exactly like that insensitive friend who you call out for being an asshole and then who (doesn't really) apologizes by explaining their motivations for being an asshole rather than actually apologizing and meaning that apology.
Our nameless protagonist is also a sexist, misogynistic dick whose views on women are never actually challenged and whose opinions never change throughout the book. Let's take a look at these grotesques:
"Jack Meredith was more like the cartoon of a woman who wished that she were a man."
"Fat, but not water balloon fat; with flesh not flabby, but round like it's looking for a place to explode. Age, fifties? Hard to tell, but probably. She didn't have wrinkles; her face was too spherical. Cropped hair, too much rouge on her cheeks . . ."
Almost every woman this guy sees is critically evaluated and found wanting. The narration literally stops so he can point out all their flaws.
"She was not what anyone would call a classic beauty. Her teeth were perhaps a little too small for her mouth, but I've always found microdentia rather sexy. I suppose her eyebrows might be too bushy for some men but, to be frank, those men are idiots. The only acceptable point of contention would be her nose, which was not too large, mind you, but certainly not delicate. A small bump on the bridge indicated that there had been a break at one time, but I thought it gave her character. A case could be made that her nostrils were slightly too flared, but any reasonable judge would have thrown that case out of court."
Lord. Shut this guy up. Is he capable of describing a woman without critique? In any case, the description doesn't even make sense. If he didn't think those things (her nostrils weren't too flared), then he wouldn't have mentioned it. He's so full of shit--and the fact the author found this funny or witty to include is so telling of his character.
The homophobia. Why does Andrew Davidson include mentions of gay people when all he does with these mentions is turn them into jokes, tragedies, or . . . really strange homophobic statements? I bet (just like him writing about mental illness), he assumed he was being "diverse".
When talking about his past porn career, the narrator always talks about the men who was willing to do "homosexual work" as being sooooo brave (because wtf does that even mean?)--and then immediately goes on to mentioning bestiality . . . because that's comparable (it's not).
One of the stories Marianne tells the narrator is about a gay Viking who falls in love with a married man. Eventually, one night these two men drink and the gay Viking confesses. What happens? WELL, of course the other guy suddenly becomes enraged and beats the gay Viking to nearly death. And then the gay Viking dies in the house fire the married Viking starts. Lovely. Love this gay representation (not).
There's also this: "All the men in my life have been such shits that while Ted [her son] was growing up, I secretly wished he'd turn out gay."
. . . .
I'm sorry, but men do not stop being men, even if they are gay? The volumes this statement says . . . yikes.
Okay, now to the main event! Ableism! Joy.
The main character is covered in burn scars, and is of course disabled. He suffers from a lot of internalized ableism, which is understandable (so do I!). It's a hard thing to get over. But there are many mentions of penance, which makes me incredibly uncomfortable, especially as a disabled person, because we are constantly fed the idea that we have somehow done something to deserve our disabilities. At the end, the narrator accepts that he is serving his penance here on Earth. Bile literally crawls up my throat at this.
Marianne Engel has mystery wrapped around her the entire book, and it's left that way even after you're done reading. Is she really a woman who was born in the 1300s with thousands of hearts? Or is she only a woman with schizophrenia and/or bipolar disorder? The book doesn't leave you with one or the other (think Inception). But in doing so, it treats these conditions (and real mentally ill people) abysmally! You thought this was representation? Ha, no. She was a woman treated unfairly by those "EVIL" psychiatrists.
Marianne's psychiatrist, Gregor, a man who claims often he can't tell the narrator too much, often tells him way too damn much! I don't think Andrew Davidson knows anything about mental health practice. Gregor apparently is able to tell the narrator about things Marianne has done--when she last was admitted because she was seen "talking to ghosts". He also says "It beats me what's wrong with Marianne." What's WRONG with Marianne! There is no way in hell a psychiatrist should say something like this about a patient!! Also--if you think this way, you should educate yourself about mental illnesses and neuro-atypical conditions. If you do not have mental illnesses, you aren't normal. You aren't the right, and we are not the wrong. We clear??
"They let schizophrenics drive? Apparently so."
ha ha, you're right, sorry. All mentally ill people are useless crazies who should be institutionalized, sorry.
"The woman had looked at us and thought Marianne was the normal one."
Good lord.
I can't believe this book passed so many eyes, so many conscious people who read it and thought, "Yeah, this seems okay to publish". I'm ashamed at how many people rate it highly on this site. Reading it made me more ashamed to be who I am, and that's not okay. I can't recommend it to anyone.
Reading updates
- Started reading
- 16 February, 2017: Finished reading
- 16 February, 2017: Reviewed