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Black Cloud
The stories in Juliet Escoria’s brilliant and elegantly crafted debut introduce us to a series of narrators who tell us about bad situations and surviving them in lucid, darkly humorous prose. Surface straightforwardness belies the complex web of conflict just under these stories’ smooth exterior. Each is named for an emotion, and there are twelve of them. Some trace the path towards sobriety and some describe addiction, but without cliche and without romance. All of them are indelible, shrewd and frank and real.
144 pages, Paperback
First published April 23, 2014
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1021 people want to read
About the author
Juliet Escoria
14 books275 followersJULIET ESCORIA is the author of the novel JULIET THE MANIAC, forthcoming from Melville House in May 2019. She also wrote the poetry collection WITCH HUNT (Lazy Fascist Press 2016) and the story collection BLACK CLOUD (CCM/Emily Books 2014), which were both listed in various best of the year roundups. Her writing can be found in places like Lenny, Catapult, VICE, Prelude, Dazed, and Hobart and has already been translated into many languages. She lives in West Virginia with her husband, the writer Scott McClanahan.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 66 reviews
December 3, 2016
This collection gets all the applause and whistles. Each prose poem cuts into to the reader's consciousness, drawing blood and leaving scars. This is how it feels to hurt. This is how it feels to be afraid of tainting something whole with a shadow of your darkness. Reality and sobriety sometimes shine too brightly and are too overwhelmingly omnipresent. There is a line that I read in a poem years ago, long forgotten except for these words: "You start to want to crazy." This book is its essence. I want more.
February 1, 2014
Everyone's got a story but here's where they get you:
Only a handful of them are any different.
You'll hear the same mixup of love, addiction/obsession, and heartache no matter who you talk to, but just once, if you're lucky, you'll encounter the full-throttle charge of a story that stands alone.
It'll hurt you. It'll break you down. Don't expect it to build you back up; that part's up to you.
It's not your story, remember?
It's a story full of emotional fallout. You expect to grow numb but instead, it does the opposite: You begin to feel more than you've ever felt.
The mark of a truly unique story is the calm after the last sentence, when you haven't a clue what to do next.
You don't want to do anything. There's nothing left to do but wait until you calm down.
Only a handful of them are any different.
You'll hear the same mixup of love, addiction/obsession, and heartache no matter who you talk to, but just once, if you're lucky, you'll encounter the full-throttle charge of a story that stands alone.
It'll hurt you. It'll break you down. Don't expect it to build you back up; that part's up to you.
It's not your story, remember?
It's a story full of emotional fallout. You expect to grow numb but instead, it does the opposite: You begin to feel more than you've ever felt.
The mark of a truly unique story is the calm after the last sentence, when you haven't a clue what to do next.
You don't want to do anything. There's nothing left to do but wait until you calm down.
December 17, 2016
I've felt extremely voyeuristic while reading this collection, which is a testament to the power of Juliet Escoria's vision and narrative control. I haven't researched BLACK CLOUD a ton, but it seems to me like Escoria is consistently walking a fine line between reality and waking dream like in "Here's a Ghost Story." Some of the occurrences in the book probably happened to her, which would explain why it feels so raw and real.
I loved how the stories were each introduced by negative emotions, which oddly set the perfect reading mood each time. That was a nice touch. While I preferred her subsequent publication WITCH HUNT for its dynamic eclecticism and boiling anger, force it to admit BLACK CLOUD has a lot of merit too. It is a superb deconstruction of reality and a tightrope walk into the universe of a girl who burns with a fire no one else can quite understand.
I loved how the stories were each introduced by negative emotions, which oddly set the perfect reading mood each time. That was a nice touch. While I preferred her subsequent publication WITCH HUNT for its dynamic eclecticism and boiling anger, force it to admit BLACK CLOUD has a lot of merit too. It is a superb deconstruction of reality and a tightrope walk into the universe of a girl who burns with a fire no one else can quite understand.
July 18, 2014
Reading Black Cloud is like the first time you listen to a new metal record. Until you get used to a metal record, there's a feeling after the first couple tracks that you're just being pummeled, that all the songs have merged into one song that isn't going to let you go.
I had to take a break every few stories just to clear out the unrelenting gloom and get refocused. I read an article today where Juliet talked about the is-it-a-memoir-or-isn't-it quality of these stories, and I'm glad she called it out because it was sort of a game for me too. Probably 'The Other Kind of Magic' is the one that nailed me the hardest, because of how perfectly it captured the very real and true ongoing doom of living in New York. Some of the other stories I connected to more than others -- 'Fuck California' opens with the tightest, most evocative prose I've read from a writer who isn't old or dead, and 'Grunion Run' has sort of a funny B-movie quality that provides some small respite. Even beyond 'Fuck California,' the one thing that I don't think gets called out enough is that when the writing is on, it is motherfucking on -- just pages of prose in which not one word could be let go, in which every sentence is a gut punch.
Probably depending on your perspective, the stories that will resonate the most are the ones that feel truest, based on your own experiences at falling into bad darkness. I don't know how someone could write about what a pet fish will do to a pinkie mouse without trying it, and the alcoholic's definition of hurricane season sounds like a real thing to me. This is a hardcore record and an industrial record and a sludge metal record all at once. It feels like a first EP for a band I'm ready to get really pumped about.
I had to take a break every few stories just to clear out the unrelenting gloom and get refocused. I read an article today where Juliet talked about the is-it-a-memoir-or-isn't-it quality of these stories, and I'm glad she called it out because it was sort of a game for me too. Probably 'The Other Kind of Magic' is the one that nailed me the hardest, because of how perfectly it captured the very real and true ongoing doom of living in New York. Some of the other stories I connected to more than others -- 'Fuck California' opens with the tightest, most evocative prose I've read from a writer who isn't old or dead, and 'Grunion Run' has sort of a funny B-movie quality that provides some small respite. Even beyond 'Fuck California,' the one thing that I don't think gets called out enough is that when the writing is on, it is motherfucking on -- just pages of prose in which not one word could be let go, in which every sentence is a gut punch.
Probably depending on your perspective, the stories that will resonate the most are the ones that feel truest, based on your own experiences at falling into bad darkness. I don't know how someone could write about what a pet fish will do to a pinkie mouse without trying it, and the alcoholic's definition of hurricane season sounds like a real thing to me. This is a hardcore record and an industrial record and a sludge metal record all at once. It feels like a first EP for a band I'm ready to get really pumped about.
April 4, 2014
Juliet Escoria's fierce and uncompromising debut has made drug fueled excess sexy again, but at what personal cost, I don't know. Judging by her author bio, a bit? Still, the stories here are each composed of a different drug of choice, from alcohol to heroin to pills to ketamine, and every other variety you can imagine. Embedded in each of those stories is something of a visual/metaphorical map of symbols which point back to said drug of choice.
For instance, Fuck California: Whippets, airplanes, the bay.
Reduction: Ketamine, nosebleeds, lasagna, computer code.
Heroin Story: Heroin, DMT, genital warts as revenge, dysfunctional relationships
The Sharpest Part of her: Cocaine, pink lemonade, teddy bears, fashion shoots.
Juliet gives symbolic tours of desolation, which for our generation seems to be the end result of all our desires. At least in this respect, Black Cloud feels familiar. Dysfunction, addiction and ennui never really leave us from one generation to the next. They just sneak up in new and ever interesting ways.
The photography between chapters also help to distinguish this from your typical sojourn through mythologized self destruction.
Much like Escoria herself, her publisher Civil Coping Mechanisms is poised to rise to some level of prominence in the years ahead as they continue to communicate these visions from those artists who are beyond even a postmodern paradigm. This is Alt Lit, at least until the next wave of transformation.
For instance, Fuck California: Whippets, airplanes, the bay.
Reduction: Ketamine, nosebleeds, lasagna, computer code.
Heroin Story: Heroin, DMT, genital warts as revenge, dysfunctional relationships
The Sharpest Part of her: Cocaine, pink lemonade, teddy bears, fashion shoots.
Juliet gives symbolic tours of desolation, which for our generation seems to be the end result of all our desires. At least in this respect, Black Cloud feels familiar. Dysfunction, addiction and ennui never really leave us from one generation to the next. They just sneak up in new and ever interesting ways.
The photography between chapters also help to distinguish this from your typical sojourn through mythologized self destruction.
Much like Escoria herself, her publisher Civil Coping Mechanisms is poised to rise to some level of prominence in the years ahead as they continue to communicate these visions from those artists who are beyond even a postmodern paradigm. This is Alt Lit, at least until the next wave of transformation.
May 29, 2015
Notes on Reading “Black Cloud” by Juliet Escoria. A New Kind of review.
This book is about sex, drugs, and mental illness. Do I have your attention? Good.
To provide a lens for the reader: 4 Facts about American Culture circa Early 21st Century:
• Drug Addiction is a moral/character flaw. (Thus is subject to open judgment and condemnation. Unless you’re rich or famous, in which case it comes with the territory).
• Promiscuity (specifically female promiscuity) is a moral/character flaw/sin. (Thus is subject to open judgment and condemnation. Unless you’re rich or famous, in which case it comes with the territory).
• Suicide is the ultimate taboo character flaw. (Thus is subject to open judgment and condemnation. Unless you’re a rock star or a mad genius, in which case it is the ultimate display of romantic excess).
• Mental Illness is a character flaw, not a real illness like, say, cancer. (Thus is subject to open judgment and condemnation. Unless you’re rich or famous, in which case it’s just part of your brand)
Simply put, if you are a young woman struggling with drug abuse, loneliness/self-esteem issues, and a mental disorder, this culture will do its best to torture you into being ‘right,’ before finally eating you alive for being ‘wrong’— if you don’t kill yourself first. Or perhaps even the more dangerous (the worst thing of all), it will forget altogether that you were ever a living breathing human being, that you were ever once part of the human community. It will say, “Fuck Person A. They aren’t fit for this life. Out of place. Out of time. Out of mind.”
So is the case for the unnamed narrator(s) in Juliet Escoria’s debut collection “Black Cloud.” Person A we will call her. Or better yet, let’s call her Annabelle for this review. Because to call her narrator isn’t human enough. For our purposes here, let us see her as the culture will not: as human. This is the reader’s job. Perhaps this is why Escoria chooses to keep her protagonist(s) nameless, to force the reader to see through the namelessness, and perhaps come to terms with their own black cloud.
(Stay with me, because believe it or not, despite how I’ve made the book seem so far, it is one of ultimate hope and endurance. We just have to ignore what the culture tries to tell us about narratives like these, and about humans like Annabelle).
But before we go on, let’s mention briefly what this book is, and isn’t. It is called a collection, which implies that it is comprised of individual (yet related/semi-related) pieces/stories. But right away, after having read several sections, it becomes clear to the reader (this reader anyway) that to distinguish one protagonist from the next would be to deny any relationship between the stories at all, miss connections between the experiences of the unnamed young women depicted, and risk losing a great deal of implied meaning and depth. This seems to me like a fairly naïve approach, to see them as separate stories. If in fact there is more than one narrator, each has been rendered sufficiently ambiguous in their identities. The surface left sublime enough to blend them into one entity.
I choose to read it otherwise. I choose to read each sections as another facet/experience/layer in the myriad experiences/layers of one overarching consciousness. One soul fractured, but not completely broken. Because there still remains that consistent voice throughout the work. Any close reader will see this. And this is our Annabelle (again, my name for this review), our guiding, erratic, troubled, unreliable guide into this black cloud storm.
So when sitting down with this book, keep this in mind. It is, technically speaking, a collection of stories. However, it is not just an assemblage of shorts, each with its own narrative arc. The consistent voice that ties these pieces together is what creates the narrative arc of the whole, and to leave any one piece out is to overlook one of many layers. (And even more layers we will discuss later, the companion videos and images which move this narrative experience beyond the cerebral page, and into the visceral gut-punch of life).
All that being said, we can sufficiently get at the heart of the matter of “Black Cloud” by examining in detail the opening story: “Fuck California.” Because in all honesty, when the culture is telling you that you are fucked, there are really only two options you can pick from: give in/submit, or fight it kicking and screaming, yelling “Fuck California.” So begins “Black Cloud.” With a big middle finger back at that cloud and that culture that creates that cloud. “Fuck California… And also: fuck you.”
Annabelle (again my name for this revew) begins, “That was the summer the waters in the lagoon swelled, and the gnats and mosquitoes swarmed in black clouds.” A young couple goes about their young lives on the summer beach. The bugs are out, but Annabelle is “not really minding the bugs,” because she thinks she is in love, and she is young and having fun. She tells the boyfriend so in a whisper. Summer is good. She is in love. Her whole being can be expressed in the nature imagery in the prose. [a few quick notes on Escoria’s use of deceptively simple narrative devices in this opening scene, primarily nature imagery]:
• Experience is intrinsically wrapped up in time and place. Here she employs images of nature to depict time and mood, which both directly affect how Annabelle creates meaning out of the summertime experience. Time of year is depicted in mosquito swarms, black clouds of them. But this isn’t the black cloud that bothers. So long as she feels in love, the bugs do not seem to bother her. The bites heal we are told. She knows where she is and who she is with. She can center her experience properly, in a way that makes sense at the time. It is a pleasant time to be at that beach with that person. This is primarily created in the nature imagery.
• However, come winter she realizes she only thought she was in love. And maybe vice versa. In very sparse, minimal prose Escoria is able to shift the mood of the scene by again employing nature imagery to set time and mood. Winter comes and the kelp uproots itself, making the beach “stink of death.” She comes to the realization that perhaps the love isn’t mutual, suggested by the boyfriend’s being from somewhere else and loving everything always, because it is foreign/new, in a sense. So perhaps it isn’t her, just California/otherness. And so what once provided them a place to be together, now is nothing more than a force “out to get us,” she says. The sea the inevitable, symbolic threat, and the beach is where once living things are now dying. The love, or supposed love. Maybe innocence itself.
Moving forward, the young couple stays together for a time. They drink for reasons not known to either of them, but fairly obvious to the reader. They drift apart (this is implied by what is not said; Escoria asserts large sweeping experiences in the brevity of her prose). They come to the end of what may or may not be an abusive/destructive relationship. Time ceases to be measured in natural cycles of sea and nature. Rather, the young woman understands their last night together in terms of past experiences with drugs.
The two get high on whippets and giggle in ambiguity. She’s taken back to when she was 15, the last time she’d used this particular drug. And this is how Escoria sets up the dichotomy, which pervades/defines the rest of the personal and private relationships throughout the collection. It’s as if the young woman and the young man are using drugs to recapture some lost time/feeling, when the reality of their situation was much different. And this is where the first hints of desperation for our Annabelle sinks in.
Her mind and body separate from time and place, as she stares at the airplanes and the airport, the smell of death now replaced by the smell of gasoline. Death is still natural; gasoline manmade. The manmade environment is overtaking the natural rhythms. The whippets cartridges burn her skin, not the California sun. But that’s what it takes for her to pretend, for her to hold onto whatever it is she is trying to hold onto, and keep pretending that “the roar of the jets was that of the waves, and the lights on the landing strip were, in fact, stars.”
“Fuck California” can be read as a microcosm of the whole. Deaths come and go, metaphorical we can say. I won’t go into any further detail, you’ll just have to read it. But suffice it to say, our Annabelle turns her struggles with drugs, suicide attempts, loneliness, loss, and mental illness into a sort of mental journal, which is “Black Cloud.” And she doesn’t turn away from the truths. And she certainly doesn’t sugar coat the narrative. This is a long, brutally honest look into the face of contemporary culture. This isn’t an apology or an excuse or a cry for sympathy. It isn’t glamorous or sexy or edgy/cool. Our young narrator, our Annabelle (I’m calling her that for this review), forces herself to examine her own heart and soul. This is the heart of the collection, stripped of rhetorical curlicues and romantic nostalgia. Because this book isn’t for the faint of heart:
• [Spoiler Alert: aggressive chemicals are snorted off an erect penis at one point. Pyramids are carved into thighs. Not as a means of relieving any pain, but as a means of constructing monuments, physical evidence of her life for anyone willing to see her for who she is. Suicides are attempted. Disorders diagnosed. Strangers are fucked in backyards on LSD. Prescriptions are consumed by the bucket full. Lessons are learned the hard way. Ghosts maybe conjured up. And finally, despite how it may seem in the end, hope is in fact established, as the last section of the last story begins, “This was right before I got clean, but I didn’t know that yet.” But now we do. The reader finally has closure, even if she does not].
“Black Cloud” is a double-edged sword. It’s both the record of the looming struggles that follow us around, and the manifested courage that makes contemporary culture reexamine how it defines these particular issues. The black cloud of culture largely defines and gives rise to the black cloud that follows each of us around. Drug Addiction isn’t a moral flaw. Our sex lives are nobody’s business but our own. Suicide looms heavy. And Mental Illness is very real. And this is the point. Escoria’s collection turns the tables on the culture, forces it to take an unflinching look at these truths. “Black Cloud” to me, is nothing if not a reassuring display of personal courage. And it should be read as such.
A few additional notes for the reading.
• Several of these stories have companion videos, which depict Escoria as the protagonist in an interpretation of the stories themselves. These videos add subtle nuisances to the collection. They frame the stories in ways that influence the way the reader interprets the experiences. Are we to imagine Escoria herself as the narrator? Is she playing a character in the videos? Is this a work of fiction or nonfiction? Does it matter; would we read it differently if it were one and not the other? And what about the images of Escoria herself throughout the book? Her? Or some other character all together? I can’t answer these questions. But I can offer a model for experiencing “Black Cloud.”
• When I encountered the collection, I had only seen one of the videos. I think there are six or seven…? Anyway, I encountered a reading copy of the book before its official release, at a time when all the videos were available online, created as promotional material almost. Albeit very well done promotional material, and I would argue offering a great deal more to the whole narrative than just a simple book trailer. However, I feel like more people than not who buy this book will have already encountered the videos. And this will affect the reading. Not for better or worse. Just different. Keep this in mind. And let me suggest what I feel would be the most rewarding experience with the narrative: Don’t watch the videos first. Don’t read Escoria’s author bio. Don’t assume this collection is based on anything other than the imaginings of a talented young writer. Then read the book. Then watch the videos. Then read her bio.
• Then consider what a courageous triumph Juliet Escoria’s “Black Cloud” is.
This book is about sex, drugs, and mental illness. Do I have your attention? Good.
To provide a lens for the reader: 4 Facts about American Culture circa Early 21st Century:
• Drug Addiction is a moral/character flaw. (Thus is subject to open judgment and condemnation. Unless you’re rich or famous, in which case it comes with the territory).
• Promiscuity (specifically female promiscuity) is a moral/character flaw/sin. (Thus is subject to open judgment and condemnation. Unless you’re rich or famous, in which case it comes with the territory).
• Suicide is the ultimate taboo character flaw. (Thus is subject to open judgment and condemnation. Unless you’re a rock star or a mad genius, in which case it is the ultimate display of romantic excess).
• Mental Illness is a character flaw, not a real illness like, say, cancer. (Thus is subject to open judgment and condemnation. Unless you’re rich or famous, in which case it’s just part of your brand)
Simply put, if you are a young woman struggling with drug abuse, loneliness/self-esteem issues, and a mental disorder, this culture will do its best to torture you into being ‘right,’ before finally eating you alive for being ‘wrong’— if you don’t kill yourself first. Or perhaps even the more dangerous (the worst thing of all), it will forget altogether that you were ever a living breathing human being, that you were ever once part of the human community. It will say, “Fuck Person A. They aren’t fit for this life. Out of place. Out of time. Out of mind.”
So is the case for the unnamed narrator(s) in Juliet Escoria’s debut collection “Black Cloud.” Person A we will call her. Or better yet, let’s call her Annabelle for this review. Because to call her narrator isn’t human enough. For our purposes here, let us see her as the culture will not: as human. This is the reader’s job. Perhaps this is why Escoria chooses to keep her protagonist(s) nameless, to force the reader to see through the namelessness, and perhaps come to terms with their own black cloud.
(Stay with me, because believe it or not, despite how I’ve made the book seem so far, it is one of ultimate hope and endurance. We just have to ignore what the culture tries to tell us about narratives like these, and about humans like Annabelle).
But before we go on, let’s mention briefly what this book is, and isn’t. It is called a collection, which implies that it is comprised of individual (yet related/semi-related) pieces/stories. But right away, after having read several sections, it becomes clear to the reader (this reader anyway) that to distinguish one protagonist from the next would be to deny any relationship between the stories at all, miss connections between the experiences of the unnamed young women depicted, and risk losing a great deal of implied meaning and depth. This seems to me like a fairly naïve approach, to see them as separate stories. If in fact there is more than one narrator, each has been rendered sufficiently ambiguous in their identities. The surface left sublime enough to blend them into one entity.
I choose to read it otherwise. I choose to read each sections as another facet/experience/layer in the myriad experiences/layers of one overarching consciousness. One soul fractured, but not completely broken. Because there still remains that consistent voice throughout the work. Any close reader will see this. And this is our Annabelle (again, my name for this review), our guiding, erratic, troubled, unreliable guide into this black cloud storm.
So when sitting down with this book, keep this in mind. It is, technically speaking, a collection of stories. However, it is not just an assemblage of shorts, each with its own narrative arc. The consistent voice that ties these pieces together is what creates the narrative arc of the whole, and to leave any one piece out is to overlook one of many layers. (And even more layers we will discuss later, the companion videos and images which move this narrative experience beyond the cerebral page, and into the visceral gut-punch of life).
All that being said, we can sufficiently get at the heart of the matter of “Black Cloud” by examining in detail the opening story: “Fuck California.” Because in all honesty, when the culture is telling you that you are fucked, there are really only two options you can pick from: give in/submit, or fight it kicking and screaming, yelling “Fuck California.” So begins “Black Cloud.” With a big middle finger back at that cloud and that culture that creates that cloud. “Fuck California… And also: fuck you.”
Annabelle (again my name for this revew) begins, “That was the summer the waters in the lagoon swelled, and the gnats and mosquitoes swarmed in black clouds.” A young couple goes about their young lives on the summer beach. The bugs are out, but Annabelle is “not really minding the bugs,” because she thinks she is in love, and she is young and having fun. She tells the boyfriend so in a whisper. Summer is good. She is in love. Her whole being can be expressed in the nature imagery in the prose. [a few quick notes on Escoria’s use of deceptively simple narrative devices in this opening scene, primarily nature imagery]:
• Experience is intrinsically wrapped up in time and place. Here she employs images of nature to depict time and mood, which both directly affect how Annabelle creates meaning out of the summertime experience. Time of year is depicted in mosquito swarms, black clouds of them. But this isn’t the black cloud that bothers. So long as she feels in love, the bugs do not seem to bother her. The bites heal we are told. She knows where she is and who she is with. She can center her experience properly, in a way that makes sense at the time. It is a pleasant time to be at that beach with that person. This is primarily created in the nature imagery.
• However, come winter she realizes she only thought she was in love. And maybe vice versa. In very sparse, minimal prose Escoria is able to shift the mood of the scene by again employing nature imagery to set time and mood. Winter comes and the kelp uproots itself, making the beach “stink of death.” She comes to the realization that perhaps the love isn’t mutual, suggested by the boyfriend’s being from somewhere else and loving everything always, because it is foreign/new, in a sense. So perhaps it isn’t her, just California/otherness. And so what once provided them a place to be together, now is nothing more than a force “out to get us,” she says. The sea the inevitable, symbolic threat, and the beach is where once living things are now dying. The love, or supposed love. Maybe innocence itself.
Moving forward, the young couple stays together for a time. They drink for reasons not known to either of them, but fairly obvious to the reader. They drift apart (this is implied by what is not said; Escoria asserts large sweeping experiences in the brevity of her prose). They come to the end of what may or may not be an abusive/destructive relationship. Time ceases to be measured in natural cycles of sea and nature. Rather, the young woman understands their last night together in terms of past experiences with drugs.
The two get high on whippets and giggle in ambiguity. She’s taken back to when she was 15, the last time she’d used this particular drug. And this is how Escoria sets up the dichotomy, which pervades/defines the rest of the personal and private relationships throughout the collection. It’s as if the young woman and the young man are using drugs to recapture some lost time/feeling, when the reality of their situation was much different. And this is where the first hints of desperation for our Annabelle sinks in.
Her mind and body separate from time and place, as she stares at the airplanes and the airport, the smell of death now replaced by the smell of gasoline. Death is still natural; gasoline manmade. The manmade environment is overtaking the natural rhythms. The whippets cartridges burn her skin, not the California sun. But that’s what it takes for her to pretend, for her to hold onto whatever it is she is trying to hold onto, and keep pretending that “the roar of the jets was that of the waves, and the lights on the landing strip were, in fact, stars.”
“Fuck California” can be read as a microcosm of the whole. Deaths come and go, metaphorical we can say. I won’t go into any further detail, you’ll just have to read it. But suffice it to say, our Annabelle turns her struggles with drugs, suicide attempts, loneliness, loss, and mental illness into a sort of mental journal, which is “Black Cloud.” And she doesn’t turn away from the truths. And she certainly doesn’t sugar coat the narrative. This is a long, brutally honest look into the face of contemporary culture. This isn’t an apology or an excuse or a cry for sympathy. It isn’t glamorous or sexy or edgy/cool. Our young narrator, our Annabelle (I’m calling her that for this review), forces herself to examine her own heart and soul. This is the heart of the collection, stripped of rhetorical curlicues and romantic nostalgia. Because this book isn’t for the faint of heart:
• [Spoiler Alert: aggressive chemicals are snorted off an erect penis at one point. Pyramids are carved into thighs. Not as a means of relieving any pain, but as a means of constructing monuments, physical evidence of her life for anyone willing to see her for who she is. Suicides are attempted. Disorders diagnosed. Strangers are fucked in backyards on LSD. Prescriptions are consumed by the bucket full. Lessons are learned the hard way. Ghosts maybe conjured up. And finally, despite how it may seem in the end, hope is in fact established, as the last section of the last story begins, “This was right before I got clean, but I didn’t know that yet.” But now we do. The reader finally has closure, even if she does not].
“Black Cloud” is a double-edged sword. It’s both the record of the looming struggles that follow us around, and the manifested courage that makes contemporary culture reexamine how it defines these particular issues. The black cloud of culture largely defines and gives rise to the black cloud that follows each of us around. Drug Addiction isn’t a moral flaw. Our sex lives are nobody’s business but our own. Suicide looms heavy. And Mental Illness is very real. And this is the point. Escoria’s collection turns the tables on the culture, forces it to take an unflinching look at these truths. “Black Cloud” to me, is nothing if not a reassuring display of personal courage. And it should be read as such.
A few additional notes for the reading.
• Several of these stories have companion videos, which depict Escoria as the protagonist in an interpretation of the stories themselves. These videos add subtle nuisances to the collection. They frame the stories in ways that influence the way the reader interprets the experiences. Are we to imagine Escoria herself as the narrator? Is she playing a character in the videos? Is this a work of fiction or nonfiction? Does it matter; would we read it differently if it were one and not the other? And what about the images of Escoria herself throughout the book? Her? Or some other character all together? I can’t answer these questions. But I can offer a model for experiencing “Black Cloud.”
• When I encountered the collection, I had only seen one of the videos. I think there are six or seven…? Anyway, I encountered a reading copy of the book before its official release, at a time when all the videos were available online, created as promotional material almost. Albeit very well done promotional material, and I would argue offering a great deal more to the whole narrative than just a simple book trailer. However, I feel like more people than not who buy this book will have already encountered the videos. And this will affect the reading. Not for better or worse. Just different. Keep this in mind. And let me suggest what I feel would be the most rewarding experience with the narrative: Don’t watch the videos first. Don’t read Escoria’s author bio. Don’t assume this collection is based on anything other than the imaginings of a talented young writer. Then read the book. Then watch the videos. Then read her bio.
• Then consider what a courageous triumph Juliet Escoria’s “Black Cloud” is.
June 25, 2014
this book & Mary Miller's latest are my favorites of 2014 so far. things I liked about Escoria's 'Black Cloud':
1. the writing style/voice is unique and genuine rather than seeming forced or fabricated, something pretty rare especially with most recent publications
2. unlike many books about/involving drug use, the stories and the sentiment behind them are not solely dependent on sensationalization...in fact, half of the time I forgot drugs were even involved because, though an arguably 'important' running theme throughout the stories, as a reader I was more drawn by the emotional undercurrent of the sentences and stories
3. this is a completely selfish and self-absorbed reason to like BC but - I liked this book a lot because O felt I could 'relate' to a lot of the events/mental illness aspects, although the voice in these stories is much better at articulating emotions I experience more than my self
4. another selfish reason I enjoyed this book: it made me feel less alone and/or 'ashamed' (as cheesy as that sounds) about being called/considered 'crazy' or mentally ill because the chick in this book is pretty fuckin' awesome
5. JULIA IS A GREAT FUCKING WRITER AND SHE IS A PRETTY GIRL AND SHE IS BASICALLY A MULTI-TALENTED BABEZILLA AND YOU SHOULD BUY HER BOOK
1. the writing style/voice is unique and genuine rather than seeming forced or fabricated, something pretty rare especially with most recent publications
2. unlike many books about/involving drug use, the stories and the sentiment behind them are not solely dependent on sensationalization...in fact, half of the time I forgot drugs were even involved because, though an arguably 'important' running theme throughout the stories, as a reader I was more drawn by the emotional undercurrent of the sentences and stories
3. this is a completely selfish and self-absorbed reason to like BC but - I liked this book a lot because O felt I could 'relate' to a lot of the events/mental illness aspects, although the voice in these stories is much better at articulating emotions I experience more than my self
4. another selfish reason I enjoyed this book: it made me feel less alone and/or 'ashamed' (as cheesy as that sounds) about being called/considered 'crazy' or mentally ill because the chick in this book is pretty fuckin' awesome
5. JULIA IS A GREAT FUCKING WRITER AND SHE IS A PRETTY GIRL AND SHE IS BASICALLY A MULTI-TALENTED BABEZILLA AND YOU SHOULD BUY HER BOOK
March 3, 2014
I started this book in a stranger's house in Seattle in the rain. I read it out loud to a few of my temporary housemates while my boyfriend played minor chords on a stranger's guitar. I finished it as the clouds were breaking for the first time in one thousand two hundred and forty miles and the plane I was on descended over the ocean and back into clouds and then onto ground, my grip needing tightening to keep the pages from bumping out of my hands.
This book will break your heart. Then it will pretend to mend it. Then it will break it again. After that, it will close and not care that it broke your heart. And you won't care that it doesn't care because it's the best kind of heart break there is.
Juliet Escoria makes ugly things so beautiful and also makes me not feel bad about typing such a cliche phrase. Her prose is witty and clear and haunted. The words sentences paragraphs pages roll through the mind and off the tongue and linger there, in the air in front of you, daring you to stop reading.
But there is no stopping. Not for anyone.
This book will break your heart. Then it will pretend to mend it. Then it will break it again. After that, it will close and not care that it broke your heart. And you won't care that it doesn't care because it's the best kind of heart break there is.
Juliet Escoria makes ugly things so beautiful and also makes me not feel bad about typing such a cliche phrase. Her prose is witty and clear and haunted. The words sentences paragraphs pages roll through the mind and off the tongue and linger there, in the air in front of you, daring you to stop reading.
But there is no stopping. Not for anyone.
January 28, 2014
Disclosure: I published one of these stories "Here is a Ghost Story" in the 2013 edition of Black Candies.
I'd had the flu for couple days and was at the height of it—tired from shallow sleep, numb from from multiple medicines working in tandem or against each other. I cracked Escoria's book Black Cloud open around midnight and didn't put it down until I was finished. It was the first time in days that I could think clearly. And I thought: that is fucked up.
No, not fucked up. Heartbreaking. Black Cloud is not a pleasant ride. These stories are full of drugs, sex, smart people doing mean things to each other, lies, and mental illness.
What I find most riveting about Escoria's writing is that there's no outlet for moral rubbernecking. It's brave. There are no lessons, no happy endings. People wishing to slum it in these characters' tribulations will have to hold hold their breath, because there's no coming up for air. And then, only the most perceptive of us will recognize ourselves reflected with this kind of honesty.
I'd had the flu for couple days and was at the height of it—tired from shallow sleep, numb from from multiple medicines working in tandem or against each other. I cracked Escoria's book Black Cloud open around midnight and didn't put it down until I was finished. It was the first time in days that I could think clearly. And I thought: that is fucked up.
No, not fucked up. Heartbreaking. Black Cloud is not a pleasant ride. These stories are full of drugs, sex, smart people doing mean things to each other, lies, and mental illness.
What I find most riveting about Escoria's writing is that there's no outlet for moral rubbernecking. It's brave. There are no lessons, no happy endings. People wishing to slum it in these characters' tribulations will have to hold hold their breath, because there's no coming up for air. And then, only the most perceptive of us will recognize ourselves reflected with this kind of honesty.
December 14, 2015
Someone on Goodreads called this book's writing "like Sylvia Plath on a meth comedown" and that description is very accurate on the sheer awesomeness of this book.
Black Cloud is a collection of twelve vignette-style stories, each with a 20-something girl character dealing with issues of depression, shitty parents, bad relationships, self-loathing, self harm, and drug use. Each story is accompanied by a picture, several even of the author herself. There is a LOT of drug use in this book (matter of fact, if you are triggered by surface depictions of this you may not even want to read it) but if you look carefully there's more than that in the words here. There is redemption, peace, and a unique kind beauty amidst all the ugliness.
I love this book because it's accessible, well written, and each story is packed with a load of dynamite. Juliet Escoria is definitely one to watch, I can't wait to read more of her writing.
Black Cloud is a collection of twelve vignette-style stories, each with a 20-something girl character dealing with issues of depression, shitty parents, bad relationships, self-loathing, self harm, and drug use. Each story is accompanied by a picture, several even of the author herself. There is a LOT of drug use in this book (matter of fact, if you are triggered by surface depictions of this you may not even want to read it) but if you look carefully there's more than that in the words here. There is redemption, peace, and a unique kind beauty amidst all the ugliness.
I love this book because it's accessible, well written, and each story is packed with a load of dynamite. Juliet Escoria is definitely one to watch, I can't wait to read more of her writing.
June 6, 2014
An unassuming but quick and gritty collection of stories. I think these must be true stories because they manage to carry a pain and wisdom in them that can only be gained from real life. I like that Escoria doesn't bog her writing down with a prescribed style or aloof voice or braggy attitude. It's just someone telling their stories and not watering them down. She's damn good.
June 2, 2014
i read this in one sitting in my parents' backyard while my kids played in the sprinkler and i drank a couple beers and a bug flew onto one of the pages and while i was flicking it away i accidentally smashed it so it left a stain of bug guts and shit on there but it was kind of beautiful and it made sense and maybe i was already a little drunk.
April 24, 2014
Fantastic, searing stuff. (I should probably mention that one of these stories first appeared at Vol.1 Brooklyn, so I may not be wholly unbiased.)
December 21, 2020
No entendí tanto la cronología del relato, pero fue agradable leerlo. Las descripciones vividas me hicieron sentir que la persona desangrándose era yo y no ella, o como si estuviese viendo la situación con mis propios ojos. Volvería a leer a Juliet Escoria.
September 6, 2020
Black Cloud is a collection of very short vignettes of people struggling through love, addiction and sadness. Haunted by vices, mental illness and overall poor coping skills they struggle to make sense of a temporary, endlessly dissolving world.
While the style and prose are fantastic. I had some reservations about the photography / accompanying video links. The photography as chapter headings, each chapter containing a story that had a title just made the chapter headings feel a little redundant.
Overall, an enjoyable book. I look forward to reading a full length novel by Escoria.
While the style and prose are fantastic. I had some reservations about the photography / accompanying video links. The photography as chapter headings, each chapter containing a story that had a title just made the chapter headings feel a little redundant.
Overall, an enjoyable book. I look forward to reading a full length novel by Escoria.
April 24, 2014
Transgressive literature is the type of product that aims to borrow your spirit for the duration in which you read it. When I read Ballard's "Crash," for instance, I didn't feel violated, despite the fact that I've been in twenty-three collisions. There really is nothing arousing or fantastic about a car crash. Believe me, I know.
"Black Cloud," however, is arousing in that the narrator or narrators (?) could very well be you. Everyone tries to survive their twenties and some of us don't. When you read this, you'll enjoy a whirlwind of short stories that delve into drugs, mental illness, disposable sex and, ultimately, the State-sponsored drugs employed to correct the former.
You've done this, and it is relative to you. Despite the voyeuristic plug into a young woman's head and POV, the reader will be reminded of the bad times (and good ones) and the people whom you had lost in your twenties.
The book evokes anger and loss, but does not craft a morality play. Do not expect Escoria to tell you that "Doing drugs will make x,y,z happen." The stories negate the concept of shame and I find that refreshing in this sub-genre. "Black Cloud" makes even Irvine Welsh seem preachy.
A beautiful collection, solid production and definitely worth a second look. Actually, you will have to read it again to check if you aren't looking in a mirror. Scary stuff!
"Black Cloud," however, is arousing in that the narrator or narrators (?) could very well be you. Everyone tries to survive their twenties and some of us don't. When you read this, you'll enjoy a whirlwind of short stories that delve into drugs, mental illness, disposable sex and, ultimately, the State-sponsored drugs employed to correct the former.
You've done this, and it is relative to you. Despite the voyeuristic plug into a young woman's head and POV, the reader will be reminded of the bad times (and good ones) and the people whom you had lost in your twenties.
The book evokes anger and loss, but does not craft a morality play. Do not expect Escoria to tell you that "Doing drugs will make x,y,z happen." The stories negate the concept of shame and I find that refreshing in this sub-genre. "Black Cloud" makes even Irvine Welsh seem preachy.
A beautiful collection, solid production and definitely worth a second look. Actually, you will have to read it again to check if you aren't looking in a mirror. Scary stuff!
February 16, 2016
Memories are recounted like dreams; half-remembered situations, problems, events where the details slip away, but the painful impact lingers. Relationships are discovered and examined like something found on the beach: warped and distorted by time & outside forces, but the glimmer of what they once were remains. Other memories appear sharp, clear, and blinding as sudden sunlight. 'Black Cloud' is presented as a puzzle with half the pieces, in which the reader is given intermittent shocks of the main character's life and leaves their imagination to determine how her true nature is shaped by it.
The prose is written with a poetic spirit. The situations can be related to, but simultaneously appear like a distant light, something that you believe exists but will never truly know. 'Black Cloud' is all these things, but above all of that, is presented as the furious entries of a soul retracing her scars inflicted by the trauma of life. Listen as the narrator recounts the stories they tell.
January 21, 2017
This collection of stories offers punch after punch to the gut. It explores many of my favorite themes: drug abuse, bad relationships, the subculture, horrible parenting. The stories are so intimate and powerful that, read together, they give the reader a voyeuristic feel as if scanning the pages of someone's diary. If there's a flaw to Black Cloud, it's not with the writing but the fact his book is deceptively short. The layout is in a sort of web-zine format with no indents and overly wide spacing. Still, the writing makes up for it with its raw, emotional presence and its ability to connect. I loved it, and you will, too (unless have something against drugs and bad relationships). Highly recommended.
December 26, 2017
I read this within the same week of reading Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson. I'll now always consider these as companion pieces to each other. Like Johnson, Juliet Escoria's collection consists of stories that deceive; are these pieces confessional, fictitious, or both? The prose here is sharp enough to cut and will stick with you for weeks. "This is a Ghost Story" is my personal favorite in this slim collection. I read Black Cloud within an hour before work and it's haunted me ever since. This is truly incredible writing that I plan to revisit soon.
March 8, 2014
One of the main reasons I read is to feel, and I definitely got that from this book. The feelings, without considering the complexity with which they are evoked, are not always pleasant. However, they are powerful and they are moving. In sparse prose, Escoria makes you feel. Moreover, even when what you feel is terrible and frightening, Escoria makes it beautiful. These are powerful stories.
May 17, 2014
One of the best books out there. The language is direct. The situations are intense and awful and somehow beautiful. Beautiful in the way only experience can be. Really can't say enough good about this book.
December 3, 2014
"We decided to watch the fish fuck on the beach."
May 9, 2017
*leido para taller de literatura contemporanea 2017*
Me gusto este libro mucho más de lo que pense que me gustaría pero aún así no lo logró quedarse conmigo. Sonara como una contradiccion con lo que voy a decir ahora porque la mayor parte de este tipo de libros no me suelen gustar pero encontre en este un enorme potencial. Siento que la autora aporvecho al máximo sus recursos del texto y le añadió muchas cosas como los videos que complementan cada historia, las emociones que demuestran también y el juego con las imágenes.
Creo que es un libro que estará revoloteandome mucho por esto y por ello pensaré si subirle el ranting pero por ahora no jiji.
Me gusto este libro mucho más de lo que pense que me gustaría pero aún así no lo logró quedarse conmigo. Sonara como una contradiccion con lo que voy a decir ahora porque la mayor parte de este tipo de libros no me suelen gustar pero encontre en este un enorme potencial. Siento que la autora aporvecho al máximo sus recursos del texto y le añadió muchas cosas como los videos que complementan cada historia, las emociones que demuestran también y el juego con las imágenes.
Creo que es un libro que estará revoloteandome mucho por esto y por ello pensaré si subirle el ranting pero por ahora no jiji.
December 11, 2020
Muchos de los relatos me hicieron eco, no por el tema de las drogas, ni por lejos, sino por alejar al bueno del lado de uno
Encuentro que los cortos que acompañan los cortos son en su mayoría poco relevantes, pero hay un par que son joyas, más que acompañamiento son complementos, si la mayoría hubiese sido así, seguro el libro brillaría más
Encuentro que los cortos que acompañan los cortos son en su mayoría poco relevantes, pero hay un par que son joyas, más que acompañamiento son complementos, si la mayoría hubiese sido así, seguro el libro brillaría más
August 1, 2022
Me pasó que habían cuentos en donde, por lo menos yo, no lograba conectar la emoción con lo que se estaba contando. Creo que hay cuentos con temas brutales.
Siento que cada uno viene desde la experiencia misma y nos hace reflexionar sobre temas no muy hablados.
Encuentro valiente la idea de contar estas experiencias, tan fuertes y brutales.
Siento que cada uno viene desde la experiencia misma y nos hace reflexionar sobre temas no muy hablados.
Encuentro valiente la idea de contar estas experiencias, tan fuertes y brutales.
April 17, 2018
I loved Escoria's writing. The only reason I gave three stars is because some of the subject matter wasn't my cup of tea. Some of the stories I really liked though. The videos to go along with them on her vimeo channel were interesting as well. Again, I really liked some, but not others.
August 11, 2023
So short, I might have to take the hour and change it took to read it and do it all over again. Dark, but not uniquely so. None of the stories were bad, but none made me close the book, stare at the wall, and make me wish I could write.
Round down 3
Round down 3
May 25, 2017
Me gustó, aunque no me sorprendió mucho en comparación a otros autores de alt-lit que he leído. Aún no veo los videos asociados al libro, quizás complementa/mejora la experiencia.
September 24, 2017
Escoria is fierce and honest! I LOVE this book! Couldn't put it down and look forward to anything she writes! LOVE!
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