In The Last Time I Saw You, author Rebecca Brown returns to the obsessive, darkly humorous voice that has earned her comparisons to Samuel Beckett and Djuna Barnes. Some of the tales in this collection are told in the scrappy, breathless voice of a...
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For such a short book of very short stories this was incredibly affecting. I don't remember another book that made me feel this terrible.
I picked it up (at the store that published it, City Lights in SF) because the blurb on the back used words like “obsessive” and “dark” and “like an insistent, disturbing dream”. So I'm not sure why I was so shocked when it really truly was dark and intense and emotional and harrowing.
“Trying to Say” was the most painful. It discusses an intense long-term obsession that is voluntarily sustained after a relationship dies. It's visceral and potent and horrible. Most of the other stories are along a similar mood if not a similar topic - bleak and excruciating. I read the book as quickly as possible to get it done with because it was so emotionally difficult.
I hated reading it, but I reckon I was meant to. The author wants it to hurt and it absolutely does. She captures obsession perfectly. But it was very, very unpleasant.
