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Multiply/Divide: On the American Real and Surreal
In the manner of Calvino's Invisible Cities , Wendy S. Walters's essays deftly explore the psyches of cities such as Chicago, Detroit, New York, Portsmouth, and Washington, D.C. In "Cleveland," she interviews an African-American playwright who draws great reviews, but can't muster an audience. An on-air telephone chat between a DJ and his listeners drives a discussion of race and nutrition in "Chicago Radio." In "Manhattanville" the author, out for a walk with her biracial son, is mistaken for his nanny. Each essay explores societal questions—how eras of immense growth can leave us unable to prosper from that growth, how places intended for safety become fraught with danger, and how race and gender bias threaten our communities. Walters's haunting utterances are beautifully precise estimations of a place and its people.
152 pages, Paperback
First published August 11, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
November 27, 2017
IQ "I know that violence is change that occurs too quickly. No conflict is ever solved because of it-only suppressed. But violence makes even less sense when it weakens a community's ability to respond to powerful interests that are reshaping its relationship to place" (173)
The first time I became familiar with Wendy S. Walters was when I read her essay 'Lonely in America' in Jesmyn Ward's The Fire This Time. I liked it but it didn't captivate me and I feel much the same about this essay collection. I did not mind the mixing of fiction and non-fiction/memoir but I did very much mind not knowing when historical tidbits were shared and not knowing right away if they were true or not. It's an odd decision to make when footnotes are used for certain historical moments or quotes but not all. At the same time I couldn't just assume the lack of footnotes meant it was purely fictional. Thus I would end up having to look up the mention (for example the plane of prisoners that disappeared) which took me out of the essay, much to my annoyance.
While it's not a smooth read, this collection has some quirks that keep it fresh, such as "Norway" and "Procedural". These were very enjoyable and left me with a lot to ponder to make sure I fully grasped all the author wanted to achieve. But I wouldn't agree with a majority of reviews that cite her strength in writing about place, the only city I felt she fully immersed us in was New York (specifically Manhattanville) and the country of Norway but her essays on Cleveland, Chicago and DC were lacking. Although she does spend a lot of time in the Northeast and I did really enjoy those self-reflections and study of the racial nuances and racism of New England. And the autobiographical focus is well-done, it didn't read as navel-gazing but smart introspection.
I would recommend this essay collection though if only because Margo Jefferson wrote a blurb for it and that woman gives me life. A weighty grouping of essays and fiction, making it hard to categorize (which is not a criticism) and extremely unique. These writings cover a variety of topics from gentrification to Hurricane Katrina to relationships and it all manages to fit together and move the collection forward.
Other favorite quotes;
"I have never been particularly interested in slavery, perhaps because it's such an obvious fact of my family's history. We know where we were enslaved in America, but we don't know much else about our specific conditions. The fact that I am descended from slaves is hard to acknowledge on a day-to-day basis, because slavery does not fit with my self-image. Perhaps this is because I am pretty certain I would not have survived it. [....] I resist thinking about slavery because I want to avoid the overwhelming feeling that comes from trying to conceive of the terror, violence, and indignity of it" (1-2). This quote is so me, I was thrilled to identify so strongly with Walters right out the gate but that feeling didn't last the entirety. But that's ok!
"Those of us who had been through a marriage asked why so much time was spent defining what marriage wasn't-when no one could say for certain what it was." (116)
The first time I became familiar with Wendy S. Walters was when I read her essay 'Lonely in America' in Jesmyn Ward's The Fire This Time. I liked it but it didn't captivate me and I feel much the same about this essay collection. I did not mind the mixing of fiction and non-fiction/memoir but I did very much mind not knowing when historical tidbits were shared and not knowing right away if they were true or not. It's an odd decision to make when footnotes are used for certain historical moments or quotes but not all. At the same time I couldn't just assume the lack of footnotes meant it was purely fictional. Thus I would end up having to look up the mention (for example the plane of prisoners that disappeared) which took me out of the essay, much to my annoyance.
While it's not a smooth read, this collection has some quirks that keep it fresh, such as "Norway" and "Procedural". These were very enjoyable and left me with a lot to ponder to make sure I fully grasped all the author wanted to achieve. But I wouldn't agree with a majority of reviews that cite her strength in writing about place, the only city I felt she fully immersed us in was New York (specifically Manhattanville) and the country of Norway but her essays on Cleveland, Chicago and DC were lacking. Although she does spend a lot of time in the Northeast and I did really enjoy those self-reflections and study of the racial nuances and racism of New England. And the autobiographical focus is well-done, it didn't read as navel-gazing but smart introspection.
I would recommend this essay collection though if only because Margo Jefferson wrote a blurb for it and that woman gives me life. A weighty grouping of essays and fiction, making it hard to categorize (which is not a criticism) and extremely unique. These writings cover a variety of topics from gentrification to Hurricane Katrina to relationships and it all manages to fit together and move the collection forward.
Other favorite quotes;
"I have never been particularly interested in slavery, perhaps because it's such an obvious fact of my family's history. We know where we were enslaved in America, but we don't know much else about our specific conditions. The fact that I am descended from slaves is hard to acknowledge on a day-to-day basis, because slavery does not fit with my self-image. Perhaps this is because I am pretty certain I would not have survived it. [....] I resist thinking about slavery because I want to avoid the overwhelming feeling that comes from trying to conceive of the terror, violence, and indignity of it" (1-2). This quote is so me, I was thrilled to identify so strongly with Walters right out the gate but that feeling didn't last the entirety. But that's ok!
"Those of us who had been through a marriage asked why so much time was spent defining what marriage wasn't-when no one could say for certain what it was." (116)
Read
August 13, 2015In a smart, compelling collection of essays, Walters writes about a timely subject: race and racial bias in our country, now and throughout history. She discusses how she was mistaken for her biracial son's nanny, an uncovered slave burial ground previously hidden in New Hampshire, a well-reviewed African-American playwright who can't seem to draw an audience, and more. Her writing is fantastic and her essays are fascinating.
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Tune in to our weekly podcast dedicated to all things new books, All The Books: http://bookriot.com/category/all-the-...
January 30, 2018
This is one of the first books I have to read for my MFA course. There were a lot of very interesting stories in this, and there were many lines that I enjoyed. My favorite ones were “Chicago Radio,” “In Search of the Face,” “Multiply/Divide,” “Cowboy Horizon,” and “When the Sea Comes for Us.”
January 2, 2025
the first essay was interesting, the rest were a lot of words.
September 16, 2019
A mapmaker asks: if no one lives there, is it still a neighborhood? I think of this in terms of my hometown, St. Louis, which Walters mentions several times throughout 'Multiply/Divide', because St. Louis is one of the capitals of Black America. I think of vacant neighborhoods and I think of how much the rich start-up company in the St. Louis wants to demolish these parts of black neighborhoods, the “blighted” areas, so that our city will “look better”. Wendy creates a world of cowboys occupying land, with “confidence stretched on for years”, unafraid to use violence to get their way, and I am nodding my head in clear familiarity. The violence in ‘Multiply/Divide’ stacks up, with intrusion of boundaries, and unclear invisible space where people are or are not. There are many fake murders, such as in the story ‘Procedural’, which mix and mash into the real murders in Wendy’s neighborhood in ‘Manhattanville Part Two.’ And then historical battles of colonial America mash with current battles in building and property: “an ancient clash between maintenance and entropy.” But no solutions are available, except destruction. The police come to raid to the neighborhood of men, to decrease the summer’s violence, only for there to be a direct increase in gang recruitment in the next weeks. This book expresses a journey of “avoiding the overwhelming feeling” of violence and displacement in this country. There’s a dichotomy of searching for the discomfort and hiding it under layers. Walters wants to solve her loneliness through travel and research, but she can’t seem to feel any closer to her ancestors, or to herself. How else to escape this high tide of racial inequity, and historical silencing? All along, the sea is coming for us, too, in a giant gush of global-warming - we deserved it. But Wendy imagines us all on a ship, searching for a new New York after the old one drowned. Something about America, the land where slave’s bones are buried below intersections, with no markers. The big thing about America is: we are supposed to all be sharing this space. But most of the time, someone gets kicked off. There is something quiet and heavy and off. Why not just get up and move to a whole different island somewhere else? These essays and stories are those islands.
November 14, 2015
Well, another swing and a miss for my reading life. I'm not a fan of the entire set-up of this book, which is probably part of the problem - some of the stories/essays are factually-based, and some of them are entirely fiction, and you have to keep flipping to the front of the book to find out which is which. I, personally, don't like mixing my fiction with non-fiction (unless it's well-crafted historical fiction).
The first essay, "Lonely in America," is factual and based on the author's research on a forgotten burial ground. I liked it. It was downhill from there.
The first essay, "Lonely in America," is factual and based on the author's research on a forgotten burial ground. I liked it. It was downhill from there.
November 6, 2016
2015 was a great year for pathbreaking nonfiction that deals with race, and this essay collection is of a piece with that larger trend. In it, Walters does a masterful job of evoking how the fiction of race becomes real to our lived lives, how it permutates and spreads across many domains of experience. Looking forward to seeing more work from her pen
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July 8, 2020The essays in Wendy S. Walters’ collection Multiply/Divide grapple with heavy themes of race, gender, and class in contemporary America, urging the reader to look deep into our nation’s past to identify the roots of present-day inequities. Walters writes a mix of memoir and fiction, taking us through both troubling personal narratives and stories that read as if occurring in slightly altered versions of our own world. Set in cities across the country and dealing with a host of current social concerns, the thirteen essays in this collection vary significantly in terms of subject matter; however, I found that some of the core themes addressed in Walters’ introductory piece cut across each of the subsequent works and bring us to the heart of the book’s overall message.
In the first of the collection’s essays, “Lonely in America,” Walters details her attempts to reckon with her family’s history of enslavement, interweaving memoir with references to contemporary and historical national events. Early in the essay she notes how her “cultural memory of slavery,” much like that held by many Americans, “suggests that [it] was primarily a Southern phenomenon, one confined to the borders of plantations” either long since torn down or transformed into “nostalgic, sentimentalized tourist attractions” (2). The subsequent pages challenge this notion, pointing both to the North’s culpability as well as the effects of centuries of human bondage that have been passed down to the present day.
One story running through the essay is that of Walters’ grandmother, living in New Orleans in the years before and after Hurricane Katrina. Walters takes us into her grandmother’s home after the hurricane’s destruction, documenting the damage done by a storm whose effects fell heaviest on the city’s poorest Black residents. The following scene is set at a local cemetery, where the author seeks to reassure herself that amidst the high waters and winds of the storm, “our people hadn’t floated away” (8 - 9). The theme of lost burial places runs throughout the essay, as Walters’ interest in the forgotten history of New England slavery takes her to two Rhode Island town with centuries-old African cemeteries. Much to her concern, she finds that these sites have been lost to time, now unmarked or entirely built over. Their removal from the region’s geography suggests a parallel erasure of the traumas of slavery from Northern historical memory.
Alongside the historical and political implications of slavery’s centuries-long and nationwide grasp, “Lonely in America” also brings to light the effects on contemporary individuals of generations’-worth of communal trauma. Walters initially discusses her feelings of loneliness after her return from New Orleans, a depression that she found “came from having a profound sense of disconnection from what I thought America was, and who, in that context I knew myself to be…[it] seemed to emanate from a place that preceded my own memory and stretched across time into a future that extended far beyond my vision” (9). A century and a half after the official end of American slavery, the institution still weighs painfully on the backs of those forced to contend with our nation’s blindness to the reality of its historical (and contemporary) brutality.
The themes raised in Multiply/Divide’s opening essay are woven across the following pieces that take up such varied topics as food deserts, crime shows, and mixed-race parenting. Throughout the collection, Walters contends with the force of history on the present-day, directing us to consider the social, political, and psychological impact of American white, male supremacy. I find this particularly relevant in light of my own service, where I am confronted regularly by the contemporary effects of our country’s history of physical and institutional violence against marginalized peoples. Reckoning with addiction or mental illness is not simply a matter of understanding an individual’s present condition, or even just events that took place within their lifetime; rather, a full picture is painted only by coming to terms with the whole weight of our national past.
In the first of the collection’s essays, “Lonely in America,” Walters details her attempts to reckon with her family’s history of enslavement, interweaving memoir with references to contemporary and historical national events. Early in the essay she notes how her “cultural memory of slavery,” much like that held by many Americans, “suggests that [it] was primarily a Southern phenomenon, one confined to the borders of plantations” either long since torn down or transformed into “nostalgic, sentimentalized tourist attractions” (2). The subsequent pages challenge this notion, pointing both to the North’s culpability as well as the effects of centuries of human bondage that have been passed down to the present day.
One story running through the essay is that of Walters’ grandmother, living in New Orleans in the years before and after Hurricane Katrina. Walters takes us into her grandmother’s home after the hurricane’s destruction, documenting the damage done by a storm whose effects fell heaviest on the city’s poorest Black residents. The following scene is set at a local cemetery, where the author seeks to reassure herself that amidst the high waters and winds of the storm, “our people hadn’t floated away” (8 - 9). The theme of lost burial places runs throughout the essay, as Walters’ interest in the forgotten history of New England slavery takes her to two Rhode Island town with centuries-old African cemeteries. Much to her concern, she finds that these sites have been lost to time, now unmarked or entirely built over. Their removal from the region’s geography suggests a parallel erasure of the traumas of slavery from Northern historical memory.
Alongside the historical and political implications of slavery’s centuries-long and nationwide grasp, “Lonely in America” also brings to light the effects on contemporary individuals of generations’-worth of communal trauma. Walters initially discusses her feelings of loneliness after her return from New Orleans, a depression that she found “came from having a profound sense of disconnection from what I thought America was, and who, in that context I knew myself to be…[it] seemed to emanate from a place that preceded my own memory and stretched across time into a future that extended far beyond my vision” (9). A century and a half after the official end of American slavery, the institution still weighs painfully on the backs of those forced to contend with our nation’s blindness to the reality of its historical (and contemporary) brutality.
The themes raised in Multiply/Divide’s opening essay are woven across the following pieces that take up such varied topics as food deserts, crime shows, and mixed-race parenting. Throughout the collection, Walters contends with the force of history on the present-day, directing us to consider the social, political, and psychological impact of American white, male supremacy. I find this particularly relevant in light of my own service, where I am confronted regularly by the contemporary effects of our country’s history of physical and institutional violence against marginalized peoples. Reckoning with addiction or mental illness is not simply a matter of understanding an individual’s present condition, or even just events that took place within their lifetime; rather, a full picture is painted only by coming to terms with the whole weight of our national past.
December 23, 2017
whoa - this was a really awesome read. I have to admit, I think I would need to read through it again to catch all the interwoven pieces. I love books of this style - "jumpy" essays connected by common thematic threads. I wonder if Don't Let Me Be Lonely by Claudia Rankine was a big inspiration for this work. love the way Walters explores the realities of race and this sort of fatalistic sense of what America is and was and will become because of what it won't look at through both nonfiction and fiction and blendings inbetween. I'm surprised this book isn't more acclaimed, it seems like one begging to be studied in class and with other people. themes, phrases, and ideas appear and then reappear in a later story/essay, which is awesome. "Lonely in America" was particularly impactful and powerful. Walters does an incredible job of living in & presenting places with a full history, not just "describing" that history - it's there around her in the narrations. definitely a favorite I've read this year
June 13, 2020
Sarabande Press puts out good shit, and so it's unsurprising that I really enjoyed this collection of documentary essay, memoir, lyric essay, and fictional essay. Particularly good were "Procedural," a story, really (which pairs well with Machado's famed "Especially Heinous"), and "Lonely in America," an essay exploring cultural dislocation through the lens of the author's research into the forgotten burial sites of of enslaved Africans in New England.
Walters herself says of the book: "I wrote this book with the awareness that making a distinction between fiction and nonfiction is not always productive in discussions about race and geography. One reason for this is that race and national borders are fictions that get employed as facts." This formal interest comes through, elevating the short collection into something memorable and important.
Walters herself says of the book: "I wrote this book with the awareness that making a distinction between fiction and nonfiction is not always productive in discussions about race and geography. One reason for this is that race and national borders are fictions that get employed as facts." This formal interest comes through, elevating the short collection into something memorable and important.
January 16, 2018
This is the first book I read for my MFA program! Hooray! It was a wild collection of essays and the title fits: real and surreal. The trend lately seems to be blending fiction and nonfiction, and this collection blends with a dash of lyric essay, anachronistic vignettes, wild news stories, cowboys, and oceanic musings. There were moments I found the narrator infuriating, detached, and selfish, and other moments where I was so mesmerized by the voice and the scenarios explored. There is particular whimsy in "When the Sea Comes for Us." I love this line from a Christian standpoint: "The truth is that space belongs to no one." We are dust. Most of all, I am grateful for the opportunity to read a book I wouldn't ordinarily pick up.
February 15, 2018
This book is the kind of read that makes you forget it's a collection of works. It's so well organized that it reads as one voice explaining cities through experiences and the histories and people in them. Really enjoyed each section and the research that went into them. The voice itself is so real and concrete that it's impossible to keep from feeling like you're being told the stories by the narrator directly.
July 8, 2020
4.5, If Multiply/Divide was currently being released today it would probably be on many must-read lists. Tt is akin to Claudia Rankine's Citizen, in that it is collection of essays, poems, and short-stories that come incredibly close to being non-fiction. For the most part each story / essay / poetry lands exquisitely, except a few that I think suffer from format and style.
February 17, 2023
The essays on NYC were my favourites. Although I’ve read about the archaeological sites sometimes disturbed by development, I had not encountered descriptions of the teeming harbour full of oysters and fish prior to becoming a raw sewage refuge or about ships buried beneath the city for 200 years. I wanna know more.
September 27, 2017
Strange, experimental, segmented essays that mix genre conventions and use this to discuss loneliness, racial inequality, history, and the blurring between past/present reality. Walters's lyricism is beautiful.
March 26, 2019
Wow, each essay required more attention, patience, and thought than I have the energy to give, right now. I wouldn’t recommend reading this book in one piece, or even in order. It had some very healing, impactful moments that I will read over and over.
June 29, 2017
A great mix of fiction and non-fiction essays. Even the less interesting essays are fun.
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February 7, 2023This book was left in my office and I read it there.
March 22, 2016
This book came to me a little inexplicably, in a package sent by author Daniel Handler, months after I'd found the secret application to his vaguely described 'postal club' hidden on his web site, filled it out, mailed it with a stamp (and how often do I mail anything with a stamp?), and then forgotten about it completely.
The surprise and mystery of the whole thing worked really well with the book itself, which blends the real and the unreal in unexpected and rich and complicated ways. The experiences of being black, female, American, lonely, afraid, displaced... they're mixed and remixed and I'm closing the book feeling like I just had a really weird dream I can't quite remember.
The surprise and mystery of the whole thing worked really well with the book itself, which blends the real and the unreal in unexpected and rich and complicated ways. The experiences of being black, female, American, lonely, afraid, displaced... they're mixed and remixed and I'm closing the book feeling like I just had a really weird dream I can't quite remember.
January 28, 2016
Fascinating journey through experiences of the real and surreal . Addresses these with candidness that is empathetic , sympathetic and cynical all at the same time. An amazing voice that resonates with anyone who has felt alienated from life for any reason!
March 12, 2016
This book was a compilation of essays and short stories, and unfortunately it was pretty hit-and-miss for me. I much preferred her more creative works over the more factual essays, which struck me as overly self-pitying and navel-gazey.
December 28, 2015
Thought this was one of the best books I've ever read. Surprising given it's essays. Loved the prose. Loved the city as a lead character. Beautiful work of art.
February 9, 2024
Ever years later, I still think about that haunting image of Walters with those papers in her backpack. A wonderful collection of essay and fiction.
March 31, 2017
Amazing essay, lyrical poems and short story collection. Honest, witty, funny, sassy, powerful. A must read. Having met Wendy at literary swag book club (look it up if you're in NYC and come throughhh) last night just made this even more special; being able to ask her questions and hear her thoughts behind some of the passages was awesome.
Go get this, peeps. <3
This gave me the energy to get back into reading since it has been a difficult month physically and emotionally. I'm ready to read. :]
Go get this, peeps. <3
This gave me the energy to get back into reading since it has been a difficult month physically and emotionally. I'm ready to read. :]
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews