...the Soul of Wit - Short Reviews

 The shorties are here, enjoy!

Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma by Claire Dederer

What do we do with terrible people in our lives? Nothing. We keep loving them.

Monsters is an honest, elaborate meditation on the separation of art from the artist’s biography and whether or not this is possible at all.
While raising the question, Claire Dederer never claims to have the answer to the dilemma; she merely unfolds the problem, drawing from her personal experiences, her personal admiration for the works of Woody Allen, Polanski and Picasso, and furthering the examples by the cases of J.K. Rowling, Wagner, Michael Jackson and many the likes. The book is roughly divided into two parts where men and their monstrosity are mainly displayed by cases of sexual assaults while the female monstrosity is characterized (by society) by the treatment or abandonment of one’s own children, see Anne Sexton or Sylvia Plath. These women may, in my own opinion, have been represented a little one-sidedly – Dederer speaks of a need for women to make a decision between children or their art, and that choice is put in very binary terms. Maybe some women just don’t want to have children and not because they had to choose anything. That chapter also takes a very personal turn, thematizing a personal addiction of the author, which was kind of autobiographical and uncomfortable for me to read. I don’t really feel like I signed up for that.
Other than that, I thought this was extremely interesting thought-provoking, very much worth your time.

Milk Fed by Melissa Broder

Rachel is a twenty-four year old lapsed Jew with an eating disorder and obsession for older women who decides to take a communication detox from her mother, the source of her eating problems. She then meets a young Orthodox Jewish woman and the two of them begin an affair during which Rachel is being fed more than she ever was during her lifetime.

If you look at the reviews for this book, there are many calling it gross and disgusting and that set my expectations. I was really really expecting, hoping and excited about shocking and disturbing erotic scenes, I put my hazmat suit on and was waiting ready to go, but it fell short in that department, too bad. There was also too much talk about religion, too much heartbreak, even though it started really strong.
So a little disappointed here, but not too much, as it was quirky, fun and somewhat relatable still.

 Baby Fights by Robert Essig

Ducky’s dream of an underground Baby Fight empire had been slow to start, but was gaining traction with every main event.

Starting this book, I was mad curious and couldn't for the life of me imagine how the author would depict baby fight scenes, as I thought that two babies put together in a ring would barely be able to roll around like little clowns, giggling and drooling. I was wrong. The WWF names the snatched babies were given for the illegal fighting arena of Californian billionaire and depraved frat boy Francis “Ducky” Winchester should have been clue enough that it gets ugly here: Barbarella, Storm, Athena, Zolthar, Xena, Sherman, Killing Machine... It gets ugly and brutal.

See, Ducky's twisted mind, bored by the mundanity of pitbulls mauling and slaughtering each other in ordinary dog fights, used his evil genius to first invent the underground Chihuahua fights and later for an ultimate kick, baby fights. People pay good money to see these bloody matches. Rich people who already have everything and seek a new, marginal thrill. I reckon this isn't the best book for parents of babies, as it gets really violent between the little ones.

The writing is in parts actually pretty good, especially during psychological analyses of a profundity you wouldn't expect to find in a splatter novel. A striking story about human exploitation with a satisfying ending.

The Night Stockers by Kristopher Triana and Ryan Harding

Everything was going to plan, the Freshway crew behaving just as he’d predicted, as if this were all some cheap horror novel he and a friend were writing just for shits and giggles.

The year is 1992 and Desmond Payne has big plans – the satanist Devil’s Food store manager will grab the opportunity and take down all the staff of the neighboring grocery store Freshway during their upcoming nightshift. You see, if there’s anything that Desmond hates more than falling behind the competition, it’s his former employer Todd over at Freshway. He also really wants to impress his regional manager Alaric.

The ambush is over the top brutal and gory, packed with death metal and comedy gold, but not without resistance. Will Desmond and his team be able to kill their way to the very top?

“Say you love Satan!” she said. “And tell me I’m pretty!”

The Satanists’ depictions were so exaggerated and confirm every single stereotype in the book that it cracked me up all the time, but the fight scenes were plenty disgusting too. It really looks like Triana and Harding had amazing fun writing this.

As for me, two splatter books in a row was enough, I’m going back to weird fiction for now!