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I Keep My Visions to Myself
Step into Stevie's world, a 26-year-old musician on the brink of fame. A tour offer catapults her into an existential voyage through life's intricate maze. Within this tense spiritual journey, Stevie confronts the age-old dilemma of fame versus the safety of a simpler existence, all while searching for her elusive tribe.
214 pages, Paperback
Published November 25, 2023
2 people are currently reading
27 people want to read
About the author
Mallory Smart
9 books35 followersMallory Smart is a Chicago-based writer, editor-in-chief of Maudlin House, and podcaster.
She is the author of the novel, "The Only Living Girl In Chicago" from Trident Press, the poetry collection, " I Want To Feel Happy But I Only Feel__" from Expat Press, the experimental hybrid short story collection," THE WRITER," the poetry chapbook, "I'm AntiSocial, Coffee Never Lies" from Bottlecap Press and the weird chapbook, "Hipster Idiot" from Ghost City Press.
At the age of 23, she founded Maudlin House.
When she is not writing or editing, she hosts the podcast, Textual Healing. Mallory Smart is also the co-host of the horror podcast, That Horrorcast.
She is the author of the novel, "The Only Living Girl In Chicago" from Trident Press, the poetry collection, " I Want To Feel Happy But I Only Feel__" from Expat Press, the experimental hybrid short story collection," THE WRITER," the poetry chapbook, "I'm AntiSocial, Coffee Never Lies" from Bottlecap Press and the weird chapbook, "Hipster Idiot" from Ghost City Press.
At the age of 23, she founded Maudlin House.
When she is not writing or editing, she hosts the podcast, Textual Healing. Mallory Smart is also the co-host of the horror podcast, That Horrorcast.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
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November 27, 2023MY FRIEND DID THIS COVER EVERYONE MARVLE
December 10, 2023
A swift read featuring blurry days and nights in LA, I Keep My Visions To Myself is a wholesome, sometimes campy, trek of the protagonist, and soon-to-be famous, Stevie. Regardless if this is her final few days of being “normal”, it’s a fun ride full of heartfelt conversation and a surprising number of literary references. Hope that Smart brings back this character in the future.
January 11, 2024
With I KEEP MY VISONS TO MYSELF Smart has done the unthinkable, she’s written an indie novel that lacks self awareness, pretense and is enjoyable to read. The book feels like it should be a YA bestseller read by every teenage girl in America. The fact that it isn’t is a real shame because at the core of it, the book is about the person behind the image and in the society we live in today, that distinction could do a lot of good for the youth.
January 11, 2024
If you love music you’ll love this book!
November 23, 2024
Community as Combat Against Capitalism’s Silencing Individuation
And I’m not only among
But I invite who I want to come
So I missed a million miles of fun
- “Steal My Sunshine” by Len
Authenticity has always been a key ingredient in concoctions for healing from mental illness and residual trauma. It is only a secret ingredient by virtue of capitalist forces obstructing its natural outflow through communal actions. Because it remains inherently anti-individualistic, true authenticity often becomes cloaked in false authenticity, by those capitalist forces and at the behest of the vested interests of those responsible for the cloaking. The crucible of true authenticity cannot take place separate from community, and it is a political reality in our country that often those people most attuned to seeking that standard of living are kept separate from it in order to maintain a status quo that inherently prevents progress.
Mallory Smart’s brilliant I Keep My Visions To Myself (2023) establishes the theme of authentic attempts at communication being labeled incorrectly as cliché, versus actual insincere cliché, through two items. First, the protagonist is named Stevie, and before the explanation comes, the reader already pretty much knows it’s from the mom naming her after Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks. Not only that, but the intuitive reader will already know that the mom in question is a mentally unstable drinker, or maybe will have just guessed that, correctly albeit uncharitably. But the knowledge of the naming is insufficient for the feeling behind it, and the cognitive dissonance produced by the gap between those things is essential for Smart establishing her thematic concerns.
Similarly, the main foil to Stevie quickly becomes Claire, a fellow employee at Los Angeles’ Vinyl Haven who sneers at those with apparently less developed tastes in music. Simultaneously automatically the most developed employee there by far after only one chapter, as well as also chronically more annoying than seems plausible at first glance, the two seemed destined for a lasting friendship later in the novel. Obviously, that happens, but the obvious nature of the basic plot not only becomes smoothed over by the intertwining themes, but becomes confirmed as a basic truth by the resilient structure of the novel itself.
Throughout the course of Smart’s writing career, over the course of the previous four works, she went from all-encompassing atmosphere, to motifs without referents, to thematic concerns with no strict narrative structure, to – in the fourth book – the realization that narrative was necessary for her points to come across in conjunction with atmosphere, motifs, and themes. Even though the narrative in that fourth book remained skeletal, it provides the backdrop for the narrative intricacy of this, her fifth book, as well as the blueprint for a more streamlined and enhanced version of her hero’s journey – which is all the more important for being within that narrative trope but, you know, towards a good cause. Just like Len’s “Steal My Sunshine” taught Gen Xers about the dual combined necessity of self-preservation and self-care amidst adversity, this novel is here to tell you that the reason that that song describes adversity so obliquely is because of capitalism itself, and, even though previous books of hers talked about that message and this one doesn’t, that critique has never been more present than it is in this shining novel.
I Keep My Visions To Myself for the first time in Smart’s oeuvre provides the complete narrative picture/landscape where motifs, from given atmosphere, can freely intertwine and speak with themes, from given narrative, to form a fuller picture of a narrative landscape that not only her characters but also her readers can inhabit. Smart’s character development has never been sharper, from the ride-or-die Finn, to the defensive but irascible Claire, to the sweet but balanced Alfie, and finally to the struggling but resilient Stevie, the characters are allowed to be what they need to be in the necessity of the setting’s politics itself – rather than the politics dictating the setting’s characters themselves. The politics is finally first, and established – the finding of “the tribe” set in stone so that true authenticity can be shown. Character intent means nothing within a world where they themselves mean nothing.
If Smart had not separated true from false authenticity initially, then she wouldn’t have been able to so accurately portray the journey Stevie goes on throughout the novel. It is a self-reinforcing spiral of sorts, like LA itself in some ways, where the cycles go on but the individual journey is so full of vistas that inspire and sounds that captivate, to the point where one realizes that, like in the final chapter of the novel, you’re standing outside the same movie screening, about to see the same movie, with an ex you’ve known, a best friend who’s always known, and a new friend who’s recently found out – all members of a tribe that formed not just because they share a story but because they know your story. And, just like Stevie’s resilient characterization doesn’t foil Claire so much as it confirms the philosophy of the book itself, the politics of the book are inherently affirmed by the warm humanism of the themes’ careful explication of the characters.
The novel is a cry out towards more communal ways of living: I want to live in that world.
And I’m not only among
But I invite who I want to come
So I missed a million miles of fun
- “Steal My Sunshine” by Len
Authenticity has always been a key ingredient in concoctions for healing from mental illness and residual trauma. It is only a secret ingredient by virtue of capitalist forces obstructing its natural outflow through communal actions. Because it remains inherently anti-individualistic, true authenticity often becomes cloaked in false authenticity, by those capitalist forces and at the behest of the vested interests of those responsible for the cloaking. The crucible of true authenticity cannot take place separate from community, and it is a political reality in our country that often those people most attuned to seeking that standard of living are kept separate from it in order to maintain a status quo that inherently prevents progress.
Mallory Smart’s brilliant I Keep My Visions To Myself (2023) establishes the theme of authentic attempts at communication being labeled incorrectly as cliché, versus actual insincere cliché, through two items. First, the protagonist is named Stevie, and before the explanation comes, the reader already pretty much knows it’s from the mom naming her after Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks. Not only that, but the intuitive reader will already know that the mom in question is a mentally unstable drinker, or maybe will have just guessed that, correctly albeit uncharitably. But the knowledge of the naming is insufficient for the feeling behind it, and the cognitive dissonance produced by the gap between those things is essential for Smart establishing her thematic concerns.
Similarly, the main foil to Stevie quickly becomes Claire, a fellow employee at Los Angeles’ Vinyl Haven who sneers at those with apparently less developed tastes in music. Simultaneously automatically the most developed employee there by far after only one chapter, as well as also chronically more annoying than seems plausible at first glance, the two seemed destined for a lasting friendship later in the novel. Obviously, that happens, but the obvious nature of the basic plot not only becomes smoothed over by the intertwining themes, but becomes confirmed as a basic truth by the resilient structure of the novel itself.
Throughout the course of Smart’s writing career, over the course of the previous four works, she went from all-encompassing atmosphere, to motifs without referents, to thematic concerns with no strict narrative structure, to – in the fourth book – the realization that narrative was necessary for her points to come across in conjunction with atmosphere, motifs, and themes. Even though the narrative in that fourth book remained skeletal, it provides the backdrop for the narrative intricacy of this, her fifth book, as well as the blueprint for a more streamlined and enhanced version of her hero’s journey – which is all the more important for being within that narrative trope but, you know, towards a good cause. Just like Len’s “Steal My Sunshine” taught Gen Xers about the dual combined necessity of self-preservation and self-care amidst adversity, this novel is here to tell you that the reason that that song describes adversity so obliquely is because of capitalism itself, and, even though previous books of hers talked about that message and this one doesn’t, that critique has never been more present than it is in this shining novel.
I Keep My Visions To Myself for the first time in Smart’s oeuvre provides the complete narrative picture/landscape where motifs, from given atmosphere, can freely intertwine and speak with themes, from given narrative, to form a fuller picture of a narrative landscape that not only her characters but also her readers can inhabit. Smart’s character development has never been sharper, from the ride-or-die Finn, to the defensive but irascible Claire, to the sweet but balanced Alfie, and finally to the struggling but resilient Stevie, the characters are allowed to be what they need to be in the necessity of the setting’s politics itself – rather than the politics dictating the setting’s characters themselves. The politics is finally first, and established – the finding of “the tribe” set in stone so that true authenticity can be shown. Character intent means nothing within a world where they themselves mean nothing.
If Smart had not separated true from false authenticity initially, then she wouldn’t have been able to so accurately portray the journey Stevie goes on throughout the novel. It is a self-reinforcing spiral of sorts, like LA itself in some ways, where the cycles go on but the individual journey is so full of vistas that inspire and sounds that captivate, to the point where one realizes that, like in the final chapter of the novel, you’re standing outside the same movie screening, about to see the same movie, with an ex you’ve known, a best friend who’s always known, and a new friend who’s recently found out – all members of a tribe that formed not just because they share a story but because they know your story. And, just like Stevie’s resilient characterization doesn’t foil Claire so much as it confirms the philosophy of the book itself, the politics of the book are inherently affirmed by the warm humanism of the themes’ careful explication of the characters.
The novel is a cry out towards more communal ways of living: I want to live in that world.
April 3, 2024
Although I have mixed feelings after reading I Keep my Visions to myself (the book is great when Mallory is in full control of what she wants to say, but feels clumsy when she's trying to fill space for the walker of pacing). I have to give it the five stars though, because Mallory did the one thing I could never find in any other book that included fictional songwriting: she wrote great lyrics for a fictional song. That and the scenes where Stevie is in intimate moments with her friends are the great achievements of Mallory with this novel. I could have read 500 pages of those late night conversations about everything and nothing in particular, conversations I had at that age and that stayed with me.
March 5, 2024
I Keep My Visions to Myself is more than a story about a 26-year-old musician on the brink of fame. This is a complex story about how a generation interacts with the world. It is a story of longing and searching; universal themes that unite multiple generations. It offers a glimpse into the world of Stevie and her friends. I’ve been struggling with how to summarize my reading experience in relation to this novel, and while I cannot quite put my finger on it, I will say this: I had the same feeling when I finished this novel that I frequently have when a favorite show ends, and I miss the characters. I am not sure how Smart did it, but I felt close to the characters in her book, and I will miss them. I enjoyed living in their world. Also, I thought the ending was particularly well done.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews