What do you think?
Rate this book
I Have Blinded Myself Writing This
Fiction. I HAVE BLINDED MYSELF WRITING THIS was written by a woman with an affliction: her body needs her memories to clot her cuts, to heal means to lose parts of her past. It is a collection of the blueprints, lists, and photographs of memory meant to be private. It a book written for you. It is a question: as we lose our memories, do we become fragments of ourselves? It is a plea: participate with me in the remembering and the destruction of memory.
- GenresFiction
192 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2012
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
June 30, 2016
I'm not sure how this book flew under my radar for so long because it's really exactly the type of writing I'm drawn towards.
To suffer the loss of memories every time you sustain an injury - a bruise, a paper cut, a finger jammed in the door - but to not know what it is you've forgotten until you finally realize it's gone is kind of terrifying.
The book kills it on so many levels: the book design is phenomenal; the writing, at moments, takes your breath away, the prose absolutely devastating at times.
Full review to come
To suffer the loss of memories every time you sustain an injury - a bruise, a paper cut, a finger jammed in the door - but to not know what it is you've forgotten until you finally realize it's gone is kind of terrifying.
The book kills it on so many levels: the book design is phenomenal; the writing, at moments, takes your breath away, the prose absolutely devastating at times.
Full review to come
July 25, 2012
Jess Stoner's engrossing debut novel “I Have Blinded Myself Writing This” is a cognitive thriller in avant-guard clothing. Cleverly disguised by indie publisher Short Flight/Long Drive Books as a composition notebook with the a familiar black and white curdled marble cover, “I Have Blinded...” seduces the participatory reader. Despite the work's less-than-linear storytelling and the inclusion of lists, photocopies of brains, and such, the narrator, a young mother in the grips of a terrible and hereditary affliction, before long the reader is speeding through the pages gasping for breath. Don't let the broken paragraphs and strange illustrations distract you, Stoner's subject is domestic-- a mother, brother, a lover, an indiscretion, a daughter, a home-- and her genre is horror.
The narrator has a condition that causes her to lose memories whenever she is hurt. A paper cut, a scraped knee, a bruise: all threaten to destroy pieces of her identity and to eventually erase it altogether.
The book begins:
“We have suffered. My mother and I. From an affliction. Our blood needs our brains. Memories compelled by cuts seal wounds. If the past you keep with you in the present disappeared with a bruise. Then you would understand.”
Although the specifics of the narrator's condition seem bizarre and estranging, Stoner counts on every human's troubled relationship with memory to bring the reader close.
“Tell me, how do you know what you have forgotten?”
Strangely, the narrator of “I Have Blinded...” seems to know exactly what she has forgotten. She is perpetually inventorying the blank spaces and fighting for the survival of what remains--imagine Borges in a vanishing Library of Babel. As befits a work about memory, so much of the pleasure of reading “I Have Blinded...” is in the details: a pet turtle, a twelve pack of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Frank Lloyd Wright, a cursive Zed. These details anchor the story in a world we recognize so that when the narrator breaks the fourth wall to address the reader directly, it has the thrill of a whisper. Rip this page, she says, over and over, rip this page.
When the book reaches its satisfying, inevitable, and terrifying conclusion, the reader has been so entranced by Stoner's conspiratorial tone that the effect is electric. And although the immediate drama is nearly suffocatingly focused on the narrator's fear of losing her identity, the architecture of the story is involved with generational loss. The narrator, who grew up without a mother, is in the process of sending her daughter into the world without one of her own, a daughter who, in turn, might perpetuate an all too common drama of parental absence. The deadbeat dad, the long lost mom, what do their memories look like? Stoner, who works with children at the laudable Badgerdog Press in Austin, has doubtlessly absorbed many stories of absentee, imprisoned, and mentally-ill parents. The lasting strength of Stoner's book and the reason to reread it is the metaphorical power her invented disease has to address a new societal pandemic and the fear of what our lost parents may have left us in our blood.
Stoner is also the author of a poetry chapbook based on Choose Your Own Adventure stories and is clearly deeply invested in questions of literary form. American literature has only infrequently engaged in the Oulipian or ergodic or simply out right playful forms that are common in other countries, especially Europe, to the point of provincialism. Stoner has the linguistic and emotional gifts to make future formally engaged novels truly soar, and deserves a wide and enthusiastic audience.
The narrator has a condition that causes her to lose memories whenever she is hurt. A paper cut, a scraped knee, a bruise: all threaten to destroy pieces of her identity and to eventually erase it altogether.
The book begins:
“We have suffered. My mother and I. From an affliction. Our blood needs our brains. Memories compelled by cuts seal wounds. If the past you keep with you in the present disappeared with a bruise. Then you would understand.”
Although the specifics of the narrator's condition seem bizarre and estranging, Stoner counts on every human's troubled relationship with memory to bring the reader close.
“Tell me, how do you know what you have forgotten?”
Strangely, the narrator of “I Have Blinded...” seems to know exactly what she has forgotten. She is perpetually inventorying the blank spaces and fighting for the survival of what remains--imagine Borges in a vanishing Library of Babel. As befits a work about memory, so much of the pleasure of reading “I Have Blinded...” is in the details: a pet turtle, a twelve pack of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Frank Lloyd Wright, a cursive Zed. These details anchor the story in a world we recognize so that when the narrator breaks the fourth wall to address the reader directly, it has the thrill of a whisper. Rip this page, she says, over and over, rip this page.
When the book reaches its satisfying, inevitable, and terrifying conclusion, the reader has been so entranced by Stoner's conspiratorial tone that the effect is electric. And although the immediate drama is nearly suffocatingly focused on the narrator's fear of losing her identity, the architecture of the story is involved with generational loss. The narrator, who grew up without a mother, is in the process of sending her daughter into the world without one of her own, a daughter who, in turn, might perpetuate an all too common drama of parental absence. The deadbeat dad, the long lost mom, what do their memories look like? Stoner, who works with children at the laudable Badgerdog Press in Austin, has doubtlessly absorbed many stories of absentee, imprisoned, and mentally-ill parents. The lasting strength of Stoner's book and the reason to reread it is the metaphorical power her invented disease has to address a new societal pandemic and the fear of what our lost parents may have left us in our blood.
Stoner is also the author of a poetry chapbook based on Choose Your Own Adventure stories and is clearly deeply invested in questions of literary form. American literature has only infrequently engaged in the Oulipian or ergodic or simply out right playful forms that are common in other countries, especially Europe, to the point of provincialism. Stoner has the linguistic and emotional gifts to make future formally engaged novels truly soar, and deserves a wide and enthusiastic audience.
May 29, 2012
"Tell me, how do you know what you've forgotten?" asks the woman whose reflections, griefs, and hopes fill the pages of Stoner's "I Have Blinded Myself Writing This." It's an impressively engaging notebook of memories, poetry, and wandering thoughts written by a woman with an unusual disorder--she forgets things whenever she bleeds. Her body somehow makes use of memories to clot her blood. Chiggers, tortilla chips, razor nicks from leg-shaving, bumping the head- any of these things can lead her to forget her brother has died, or the name of her husband. Things become more complex when she becomes pregnant. This is a wonderful and unconventional story which explores the ways memory, identity, and relationships are so tightly woven together. An amazing book. Highest recommendation. I literally couldn't stop reading.
March 12, 2012
The Badgerdog staff was pretty elated about the release of Jess’s first book last week. Luckily for all of us, it turned out that we loved the book because it is brilliant and not just because we like Jess. Otherwise, things could have been awkward.
I Have Blinded Myself Writing This is an amazing tour de force about memory, motherhood, and self. The rangy, poetic, and deeply emotional voice grabs a reader from the first page and won’t let go. (In fact, we’ve already had two reports from staff and instructors who sat down to read a few pages and then stayed up all night to finish it.)
I Have Blinded Myself Writing This is an amazing tour de force about memory, motherhood, and self. The rangy, poetic, and deeply emotional voice grabs a reader from the first page and won’t let go. (In fact, we’ve already had two reports from staff and instructors who sat down to read a few pages and then stayed up all night to finish it.)
December 31, 2018
I plucked this at random off a friend’s bookshelf and after finishing it my jaw is on the floor. I feel like I need to read it a few more times to let it sink in. While reading it I kept thinking, “I don’t like this, I don’t like this at all” and yet I COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN. The author uses horror tap into our universal attachment to emotional memory and how our selves and our memories are tangled up into one. Stunning and thrilling work.
May 23, 2013
Full review on TOE:
http://theopenend.com/2013/05/21/book...
http://theopenend.com/2013/05/21/book...
February 17, 2013
The form is super cool, but the whole doesn't feel fully realized. Really ambitious and worth a look.
May 10, 2012
Great concept executed in an incredibly moving narrative. Had a hard time putting this one down.
January 6, 2013
It took me some time to finish reading this, as well as several starts on the book... some right in the middle, some towards the end, and finally back at the beginning again. I am embarrassed to admit that although I've studied visual-textual hybrids and think Jess is a fabulous writer, I was still resistant to the format of this novel... perhaps intimidated by it, or perhaps just cranky and old-fashioned.
Well, I am ridiculous sometimes! When I finally surrendered to the story, I became intrigued by the both the mysteries and the way the narrator copes with her constant loss. I ended up despising the wretch Teddy, which was enjoyable, and I also enjoyed the way the narrator draws upon a rich variety of sources and uses of language to process and understand her experience.
I'm not sure I was satisfied by the ending... I still had questions, and the finale is a series of bitter blows that takes too much away. But maybe that is actually appropriate to the story. An excellent emotional read.
Well, I am ridiculous sometimes! When I finally surrendered to the story, I became intrigued by the both the mysteries and the way the narrator copes with her constant loss. I ended up despising the wretch Teddy, which was enjoyable, and I also enjoyed the way the narrator draws upon a rich variety of sources and uses of language to process and understand her experience.
I'm not sure I was satisfied by the ending... I still had questions, and the finale is a series of bitter blows that takes too much away. But maybe that is actually appropriate to the story. An excellent emotional read.
April 4, 2013
a unique book in that it uses the boundaries of form as a method to illustrate its content. 'illustrte' i men here literally; like a novel in pictures, the shapes and directions of the text are often reflecting the tions of the story itself. the closest comparison is mark danielewskis work, but this has a more direct emotional impact. its the tory of a woman who loses a memory each time she is cut or bruised and the tension and dynamics that he shares with her husband before and after th irth of her child (itself a terribly tense event bc of all the bruising and cutting involved). this is the (rare) experimental novel (infused w poetry) that is emotionally satisfying. it made me feel stuff.
March 17, 2018
Powerful, experimental, with a huge and beating heart. See my full review here: http://www.pankmagazine.com/pankblog/...
April 16, 2018
I AM NOT OKAY...
Or in other words, I am confused, sad, and feeling incredibly lonely after reading this book. This hits my humanity a little too hard for a book I started after 3am and finished by 4:30.
Or in other words, I am confused, sad, and feeling incredibly lonely after reading this book. This hits my humanity a little too hard for a book I started after 3am and finished by 4:30.
August 22, 2012
A long, beautiful book-length poem on memory, basically. Slightly Douglas Copeland Life After God -ish. "Experimental fiction" etc. etc.
February 4, 2013
EVERYONE READ THIS.
This is amazing. And terribly sad. And turns your heart to soggy ash. And you will love it.
This is amazing. And terribly sad. And turns your heart to soggy ash. And you will love it.
April 22, 2017
Everything about this book is magic. Jess Stoner is exceptional beyond comprehension, and smart as hell.
July 20, 2014
By the end of this novel, Jess Stoner and I were close friends. It was an amazing piece of literature that I enjoyed far more than I expected to.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews