A Review of Claire Kohda’s Woman, Eating (HarperVia, 2022).

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Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Tripat Rihal

Well, I don’t think anyone will beat the strange amalgam of quirkiness and horror that is Claire Kohda’s Woman, Eating (HarperVia, 2022), which revolves around a central character that is part human, part vampire, and of mixed ethnic heritage (British, Malaysian, and Japanese). Let’s let the official marketing description get us off the ground: “A young, mixed-race vampire must find a way to balance her deep-seated desire to live amongst humans with her incessant hunger in this stunning debut novel from a writer-to-watch. Lydia is hungry. She's always wanted to try Japanese food. Sashimi, ramen, onigiri with sour plum stuffed inside - the food her Japanese father liked to eat. And then there is bubble tea and iced-coffee, ice cream and cake, and foraged herbs and plants, and the vegetables grown by the other young artists at the London studio space she is secretly squatting in. But, Lydia can't eat any of these things. Her body doesn't work like those of other people. The only thing she can digest is blood, and it turns out that sourcing fresh pigs' blood in London - where she is living away from her vampire mother for the first time - is much more difficult than she'd anticipated. Then there are the humans - the other artists at the studio space, the people at the gallery she interns at, the strange men that follow her after dark, and Ben, a boyish, goofy-grinned artist she is developing feelings for. Lydia knows that they are her natural prey, but she can't bring herself to feed on them. In her windowless studio, where she paints and studies the work of other artists, binge-watches Buffy the Vampire Slayer and videos of people eating food on YouTube and Instagram, Lydia considers her place in the world. She has many of the things humans wish for - perpetual youth, near-invulnerability, immortality – but she is miserable; she is lonely; and she is hungry - always hungry. As Lydia develops as a woman and an artist, she will learn that she must reconcile the conflicts within her - between her demon and human sides, her mixed ethnic heritage, and her relationship with food, and, in turn, humans - if she is to find a way to exist in the world. Before any of this, however, she must eat".

This description is QUITE lengthy and quite on the money. I always adore first person narration, and Kohda’s work is particularly delicious in this regard, because she gives us the chance to enter into the interiority of this mixed race, mixed being human-vampire figure. The union of the art world and the vampire subjectivity was also an interesting intersection to consider. It becomes apparent though that the art internship that she’s started is hardly fulfilling, so she must find a way to deal with what is obviously a toxic workplace environment. The question of ethics in this novel is also interesting, as Lydia’s mother tries to deny their vampiric subjectivities. On the one hand, the novel is a kunstlerroman, but it’s also a monster roman, if there is a monster-development novel, as Lydia comes to grips with what it might mean to give in to her desire to have and to taste human blood. In any case, I definitely enjoyed reading this text and certainly would recommend it to anyone interested in the horror genre or speculative fiction.

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A Review of Julie Otsuka’s The Swimmers (Knopf, 2022).

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Well, Julie Otsuka’s The Swimmers(Knopf, 2022) is a real slow burn, the kind that starts off a little wayward but then hits you right in the gut. As usual, Otsuka brings her lyrical spare prose to a fictional world in which a dynamic storytelling mode will move us forward, inexorably to a poignant conclusion. The official marketing description is here to provide us with some key information: “The swimmers are unknown to one another except through their private routines (slow lane, medium lane, fast lane) and the solace each takes in their morning or afternoon laps. But when a crack appears at the bottom of the pool, they are cast out into an unforgiving world without comfort or relief. One of these swimmers is Alice, who is slowly losing her memory. For Alice, the pool was a final stand against the darkness of her encroaching dementia. Without the fellowship of other swimmers and the routine of her daily laps she is plunged into dislocation and chaos, swept into memories of her childhood and the Japanese American incarceration camp in which she spent the war. Alice's estranged daughter, reentering her mother's life too late, witnesses her stark and devastating decline.”

This description is an interesting one because the novel doesn’t direct us to make this kind of explicit link between what the pool does for Alice specifically and how it relates to her personal history. Part of the issue is that Otsuka uses a first personal plural style that is reminiscent of her last novel The Buddha in the Attic . In this novel’s case, the group of swimmers that Alice is a part of give the early chapters a very impressionistic feel. The pool is in some ways the real protagonist. It is only in the center of the narrative that things shift more specifically to Alice’s perspective. The chapter concerning her mental decline is particularly affecting, and Otsuka wants to draw us into the atemporality that Alice faces, as her memories get jumbled up. This section reminded me of an episode from the series Castle Rock in which Sissy Spacek’s character is facing a similar issue. The ways in which times and places dramatically collapse is part of the brilliance of Otsuka’s delivery here. The section that was most difficult for me to read personally emerged in relation to the section in which we discover that Alice is sent to a long term care facility. Despite what is obviously a high quality institution, you can’t help but feel a sense that Alice has been left to find her way in this facility (as carework becomes exceedingly difficult for the family). Otsuka’s work is particularly devastating here precisely because of the demands placed upon individual families who cannot necessarily engage in these forms of labor. As always, Otsuka’s gorgeous prose propels us forward, despite the bleakness in Alice’s retrogression.

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A Review of Katie Kimamura’s Intimacies (Riverhead, 2021).

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Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Tripat Rihal

I’ve gotten in the bad habit again of taking a little bit too much time away from reviewing. I read Katie Kitamura’s Intimacies about a month ago, and it was such an intriguing read. Let’s let the official marketing description get us some key information: “An interpreter has come to The Hague to escape New York and work at the International Court. A woman of many languages and identities, she is looking for a place to finally call home. She's drawn into simmering personal dramas: her lover, Adriaan, is separated from his wife but still entangled in his marriage. Her friend Jana witnesses a seemingly random act of violence, a crime the interpreter becomes increasingly obsessed with as she befriends the victim's sister. And she's pulled into an explosive political controversy when she’s asked to interpret for a former president accused of war crimes. A woman of quiet passion, she confronts power, love, and violence, both in her personal intimacies and in her work at the Court. She is soon pushed to the precipice, where betrayal and heartbreak threaten to overwhelm her, forcing her to decide what she wants from her life.”

As someone familiar with most of Kitamura’s publications, I had a similar feeling while reading through this text: dread. There is something about Kitamura’s work, where you always feel like something bad is around the corner. For this particular novel, the bad is pretty much everywhere in the sense that our unnamed protagonist is not sure about the state of her relationship with Adriian. This relationship is refracted on a larger level by the murkiness that the interpreter faces as a kind of conduit of communication when it comes to war crimes cases that are being held at the Hague. As the protagonist comes to realize, the work of interpretation seems as largely subjective as the ethics in which so many of these cases are sometimes wrapped. This kind of ambiguity is the land in which readers are mired; you’re worried at every stage not only for the protagonist, but for the larger cultures and communities that are subsisting.

What I especially love about this particular text is Kitamura’s very effective use of first person narration: we feel this protagonist’s sense of claustrophobia, as she struggles to figure out whether or not she should stay in the Hague, remain an interpreter, and whether or not she can find a home there. We feel her unsettlement when she does not know when Adriaan returns from a trip meant to last only a week. We feel horror once we realize that the protagonist must work closely with someone that Adriaan knows, and who happens to be a major defense lawyer. If you’ve read Kitamura’s last two novels, then you know that characters don’t always survive. Really terrible things can happen, and I was especially worried about the many figures in this particular text. I will say that Kitamura’s conclusion gives us a minor salve, one that I thought was especially fitting given so much gloom that is palpable within this fictional world.

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A Review of Cherie Dimaline’s Empire of Wild (HarperCollins, 2020)

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Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Tripat Rihal

So, at the behest of a former student, I read Cherie Dimaline’s Empire of Wild (HarperCollins, 2020). As a note, Dimaline is a Canadian indigenous writer of Métis descent, and occasionally here, we’ve been casting light on other BIPOC writers! In any case, I read this work, and I had a lot of mixed feelings! Let’s let the marketing description give us more context:

“A bold and brilliant new indigenous voice in contemporary literature makes her American debut with this kinetic, imaginative, and sensuous fable inspired by the traditional Canadian Métis legend of the Rogarou—a werewolf-like creature that haunts the roads and woods of native people’s communities. Joan has been searching for her missing husband, Victor, for nearly a year—ever since that terrible night they’d had their first serious argument hours before he mysteriously vanished. Her Métis family has lived in their tightly knit rural community for generations, but no one keeps the old ways . . . until they have to. That moment has arrived for Joan. One morning, grieving and severely hungover, Joan hears a shocking sound coming from inside a revival tent in a gritty Walmart parking lot. It is the unmistakable voice of Victor. Drawn inside, she sees him. He has the same face, the same eyes, the same hands, though his hair is much shorter and he's wearing a suit. But he doesn't seem to recognize Joan at all. He insists his name is Eugene Wolff, and that he is a reverend whose mission is to spread the word of Jesus and grow His flock. Yet Joan suspects there is something dark and terrifying within this charismatic preacher who professes to be a man of God . . . something old and very dangerous. Joan turns to Ajean, an elderly foul-mouthed card shark who is one of the few among her community steeped in the traditions of her people and knowledgeable about their ancient enemies. With the help of the old Métis and her peculiar Johnny-Cash-loving, twelve-year-old nephew Zeus, Joan must find a way to uncover the truth and remind Reverend Wolff who he really is . . . if he really is. Her life, and those of everyone she loves, depends upon it.”

This review is admittedly going to be really short! As I mentioned, I have mixed feelings about this work! On the one hand, the premise is truly engaging. You want to get to know a little bit more about the Rogarou. On the other hand, I had a difficult time just finding the rhythm of the narrative. Joan is truly an intriguing, unique character, with an indomitable spirit. She knows that Victor is somewhere in this Reverend Wolff, but needs to figure out a way to get him to see his true identity. The problem is that the Reverend Wolf-Victor figure is now embedded in a cult-like church that is essentially controlling him, so he cannot remember who he truly is. Here, Dimaline is making a clear critique of Christian discourses that certainly enacted violence on indigenous communities. This political element is a clear motivation for Dimaline’s narrative, but I found the conclusion a bit rushed, and I am hoping that Dimaline’s ending was meant to set up another installment!

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