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Amends
A month in rehab would be stressful enough without a television audience. When the ramshackle cast checks in for "Amends," a new reality series about alcoholism and recovery, they don't know if they've been cast as villains or potential redemption arcs. Over the course of the show they learn what God sees when he shuts his eyes, how to appreciate the comforts of hallucination, and what it looks like when a wolf fights a troll. A conservative journalist woos a homeless Ethiopian visionary. A teen hockey star licks a human heart. And a collections agent pays some of his own oldest and saddest debts. From backhanded compliments to accidental forgiveness, "Amends" proves that there's a place you can go when you've given up on reality: reality TV.
330 pages, Paperback
First published August 15, 2015
12 people are currently reading
103 people want to read
About the author
Eve Tushnet
10 books66 followersEve Tushnet is a writer in Washington, DC. She has written for publications including the Atlantic, Commonweal, The American Conservative, the New York Post, and the online editions of the New York Times and Washington Post. She mostly covers the arts, from forgotten punk films to the US National Figure Skating Championships. She has published fiction in Dappled Things, Doublethink, and Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
February 20, 2016
A little long, but super fun.
January 2, 2018
This novel follows a disparate and highly colorful group of characters -- a bow tie wearing conservative writer, a homeless immigrant woman from Africa, a high school hockey star who may be gay, a telephone salesman who definitely is, a woman who thinks she is spiritually a wolf, a lesbian playwright etc. -- whose only common trait is the alcoholism which leads them to be recruited into an MTV reality show which puts them through a rehab program which emphasizes making amends to those whom they have hurt with their actions. This may sound over the top, and it sometimes is, but in a deeply human way because you can tell that Tushnet both likes her characters and has real sympathy with them. The only comparison I can think of is Florence King's When Sisterhood Was In Flower is a must read piece of satiric savagery which will at times leave you now only laughing but gasping desperately for breath. The difference is that Tushnet combines this satiric edge with a deep sympathy for her characters. She has the impressive ability to both unblinking look at their self destructive tendencies and yet at the same time love them as human beings.
The first 80% of this book is a strong five stars. My reason for rating it four has to do with its structural falters near the ending. We follow each of the characters in their successes and relapses post rehab. I wanted to know what happened next with these characters, and Tushnet clearly wanted to let us follow them. However, the structure of these epilogue type sections is scattered and criss-crossing. I was glad to be able to know what happened to all the characters I'd come to care about, but I think that another pass of editing and structural work on this section would have made it stronger.
Nonetheless, I strongly recommend this book.
The first 80% of this book is a strong five stars. My reason for rating it four has to do with its structural falters near the ending. We follow each of the characters in their successes and relapses post rehab. I wanted to know what happened next with these characters, and Tushnet clearly wanted to let us follow them. However, the structure of these epilogue type sections is scattered and criss-crossing. I was glad to be able to know what happened to all the characters I'd come to care about, but I think that another pass of editing and structural work on this section would have made it stronger.
Nonetheless, I strongly recommend this book.
August 26, 2015
Amends delivers a satisfying combination of sincerity and humor in a very readable package. While the author is a Catholic, the religious elements cross denominational lines in a way appropriate to our liberal republic. Faith is approached realistically, sometimes feeling natural, sometimes awkward, sometimes mysterious. Some of the more hilarious parts involve a post-modern Ignatius J Reilly sort of "traditionalist" gentleman and a sweetly deranged tumblr stereotype of a girl who believes she's a wolf in a human's body. On the whole, dialogue is snappy and the characters were compelling enough to retain my interest. At first glance the thought of reading *another* Catholic novel about a reality show repulsed me, but I'm glad I gave Amends the benefit of the doubt. Once you suspend your disbelief at the concept of such an enterprise with the best interests of its "talent" and the audience at heart it's more than easy enough to get engrossed in the story.
February 5, 2017
This book succumbs to at least one of the common pitfalls of "first novels" -- the plot never generates a ton of forward momentum -- but everything else about it is so good that I barely even noticed. Nearly every page has a joke or two that made me laugh out loud, and the characters, though satirical in form, are so profoundly human that I shed multiple tears for them. This is a brave, quirky, thought-provoking, and unforgettable book.
July 26, 2017
Interesting book. Can't remember why I wanted to read it though.
December 27, 2019
The funniest book I have ever read.
May 11, 2021
Hands down amazing.
September 29, 2015
In the novel Amends, Eve Tushnet writes about people who are pathetically messed-up and tragically adrift. Her protagonists--six individuals who take part in televised alcohol rehabilitation for a reality T.V. show--are all in the process of destroying themselves. Yet this is a story of forgiveness as well as humiliation.
The author writes like a person who loves her (fundamentally flawed) characters. In the course of a story full of wordplay and biting satire, she makes her readers care about the characters, too. Emebet is a homeless Ethiopian Christian who wishes she could die without committing the sin of suicide. Colton is a debt collector. Dylan is a dimpled, high school hockey player who has stuffed his car keys down the food disposal so that he won’t drive drunk. Medea writes plays full of angry, lesbian feminism. J. Malachi is a conservative writer who sides with principles rather than believing in them. Sharptooth claims that she is a wolf in a human body.
Few contemporary Christian writers tackle the messy realities of life, sin, and grace in fiction. So much “Christian fiction” is written at people instead of about them, which leads to poor storytelling. In contrast, Ms. Tushnet, a celibate lesbian Catholic whose first book is Gay and Catholic: Accepting My Sexuality, Finding Community, Living My Faith is not afraid of the messiness of life. I was excited to read her novel.
The book is chock-full of phrases that make me love her style. A character gets “a little bit Shar Pei in the forehead,” and a TV show producer “was on set, drifting around astringently in the background like the smell of bleach.” The hockey player’s host-parents look at him with “embarrassed, punitively Minnesotan expressions.” The conservative writer “had a dilapidated body and a face like the last days of the Raj: jowly, discredited, eager for the final defeat.”
The narrative itself is compelling. Ms. Tushnet does not veil the discreditable and sometimes even disgusting aspects of alcoholic life, but her book is free of the depressingly heaviness that pervades most novels devoted to “realism.” This is satire, and it is genuinely funny. We are shown the absurdity of everyone and everything. No one, whether Christian or agnostic, sane or crazy, liberal or conservative, straight or gay, escapes the author’s perceptive humor. The characters transcend stereotype and show themselves to be as human and unpredictable as anyone real.
Despite the author’s faith, this book lacks the “conversion scene” so common in Christian fiction. Some readers will probably be disappointed that the author does not resolve her story in a way that would demonstrate the Christian characters to be “right,” or even happier or better off than those who are not Christian. In fact, it could be argued that none of the characters are “good Christians” in the sense of having all of their theology, their lives, and their addictions in perfect order.
Yet this portrayal is realistic. Some Christians may look “good,” (or even, alas, think that we are pretty good), but who among us really is? Like addicts, we all engage in a daily battle with our old Adam, and like addicts, we are constantly failing to live up to our own good resolutions. We are addicted to sin. We profit more from being reminded of our true nature than from receiving a literary pat on the back. In addition, such realism is surely the only way for the book to ring true to non-Christian readers who see perfectly well that plenty of non-believers live in happiness and civic integrity while their believing neighbor kicks his dog or messes-up his life.
What Ms. Tushnet does beautifully is two-fold. One: at the micro level, her satire disarms and allows readers on both sides of the political spectrum to ponder many small presuppositions that might otherwise go unquestioned. Because she shows Christians at their worst, the author is also able to give them the fair hearing--a chance to speak for themselves--that is so often lacking in mainstream fiction. Two: at the macro level, she raises questions about sin (although without using that term), humility, and grace (again, also without using that term). It is the kind of novel that makes the reader laugh, groan, and think.
The author writes like a person who loves her (fundamentally flawed) characters. In the course of a story full of wordplay and biting satire, she makes her readers care about the characters, too. Emebet is a homeless Ethiopian Christian who wishes she could die without committing the sin of suicide. Colton is a debt collector. Dylan is a dimpled, high school hockey player who has stuffed his car keys down the food disposal so that he won’t drive drunk. Medea writes plays full of angry, lesbian feminism. J. Malachi is a conservative writer who sides with principles rather than believing in them. Sharptooth claims that she is a wolf in a human body.
Few contemporary Christian writers tackle the messy realities of life, sin, and grace in fiction. So much “Christian fiction” is written at people instead of about them, which leads to poor storytelling. In contrast, Ms. Tushnet, a celibate lesbian Catholic whose first book is Gay and Catholic: Accepting My Sexuality, Finding Community, Living My Faith is not afraid of the messiness of life. I was excited to read her novel.
The book is chock-full of phrases that make me love her style. A character gets “a little bit Shar Pei in the forehead,” and a TV show producer “was on set, drifting around astringently in the background like the smell of bleach.” The hockey player’s host-parents look at him with “embarrassed, punitively Minnesotan expressions.” The conservative writer “had a dilapidated body and a face like the last days of the Raj: jowly, discredited, eager for the final defeat.”
The narrative itself is compelling. Ms. Tushnet does not veil the discreditable and sometimes even disgusting aspects of alcoholic life, but her book is free of the depressingly heaviness that pervades most novels devoted to “realism.” This is satire, and it is genuinely funny. We are shown the absurdity of everyone and everything. No one, whether Christian or agnostic, sane or crazy, liberal or conservative, straight or gay, escapes the author’s perceptive humor. The characters transcend stereotype and show themselves to be as human and unpredictable as anyone real.
Despite the author’s faith, this book lacks the “conversion scene” so common in Christian fiction. Some readers will probably be disappointed that the author does not resolve her story in a way that would demonstrate the Christian characters to be “right,” or even happier or better off than those who are not Christian. In fact, it could be argued that none of the characters are “good Christians” in the sense of having all of their theology, their lives, and their addictions in perfect order.
Yet this portrayal is realistic. Some Christians may look “good,” (or even, alas, think that we are pretty good), but who among us really is? Like addicts, we all engage in a daily battle with our old Adam, and like addicts, we are constantly failing to live up to our own good resolutions. We are addicted to sin. We profit more from being reminded of our true nature than from receiving a literary pat on the back. In addition, such realism is surely the only way for the book to ring true to non-Christian readers who see perfectly well that plenty of non-believers live in happiness and civic integrity while their believing neighbor kicks his dog or messes-up his life.
What Ms. Tushnet does beautifully is two-fold. One: at the micro level, her satire disarms and allows readers on both sides of the political spectrum to ponder many small presuppositions that might otherwise go unquestioned. Because she shows Christians at their worst, the author is also able to give them the fair hearing--a chance to speak for themselves--that is so often lacking in mainstream fiction. Two: at the macro level, she raises questions about sin (although without using that term), humility, and grace (again, also without using that term). It is the kind of novel that makes the reader laugh, groan, and think.
May 18, 2016
Note: I critiqued this novel in manuscript; the finished version differs from the one I originally read. My review is of the rewritten novel, not the original.
“This is the real damage of addiction. It turns you into a bad metaphor for yourself.”
Amends is a satirical mainstream literary novel about an ill-conceived reality TV show about a group of misfits in rehab. The characters were selected for an unholy combination of freak-show appeal and a TV producer’s ideas of diversity and likability, which bear about the same resemblance to the real world’s version of those qualities that reality TV bears to reality, which is to say an unsettling mixture of almost none and, occasionally, a surprising amount. (Sharptooth, a wolf otherkin, was selected by the producers as focus for the audience to point and laugh; she’s unexpectedly canny in some ways and innocent in others, a lot closer to being an ordinary person with ordinary life problems than a number of seemingly more everyman characters, and generally a lot more than the producers, the other characters, and probably many readers bargained for. She’s my favorite character, both to read about and as one of the few I would actually want to spend any time with in real life.)
The show and the novel are clearly meant as mirrors of each other; the backstage discussions on the show, its characters, and its audience invite the readers to inspect the structure and presumed intent of the novel. The show was intended to pull viewers in with sound-bite squalor, then reveal an unexpected amount of truth; the novel is clearly trying to do the same, but with glittering wit, snappy punchlines, and a takedown of contemporary culture in addition to simple squalor. The characters, initially sketched-in or even caricatures, reveal themselves to be more, both within the show and to the novel’s readers. But how much more? How real is anything when the camera’s rolling?
The prose and dialogue of Amends is a real pleasure, biting and clever and snappy, quotable and re-readable. At times it’s almost too polished. One of the points of Amends is how modern American society is constructed to allow us an endless amount of shallow quick fixes we can use to stave off whatever raw and terrifying emotions or reality we’re hiding from. Reach out, and there’s always something there to grab, whether it’s drugs and booze, TV and internet forums, or the cheap fake emotion of talk show revelations and suspiciously modern-sounding ancient religions. Take away the high, take away the social media, take away the camera, and is there anything left? Much as I enjoyed Tushnet’s way with words, there were a few places where her point might have been better made by leaving out the wisecracks, and letting the emotion come through unpolished and unadorned.
It’s possible that I would have read Amends had I not been hired to critique it in manuscript, as I liked Tushnet’s style, which I was familiar with from reading her blog. Or possibly not, due to not being much of a fan of the genres of both satire or the literary mainstream. If I’d passed it up, that would have been my loss. I confess to having fond feelings for this book due to my participation in its evolution, which no doubt add to my liking for the finished result. However, my personal liking is probably counterbalanced by my usual dislike for the genres it belongs to, and so it all evens out.
Amends isn’t my usual kind of book at all, but I liked it a lot. Sentence by sentence, it’s delicious. And while the satire is funny, a lot of the character interactions are downright hilarious. The metafictional conceit is well-done, and while reality TV is obviously an easy target, many of Tushnet’s subjects are less obvious and thoughtfully explored. I don’t think you have to have any particular interest in reality TV, addiction, or rehab to read the book; I’m not the sort of reader who would normally pick it up, and I liked it anyway. It’s not so much about addiction and sobriety as it is about living an authentic life in a plastic world. Or, sometimes, the other way around.
“This is the real damage of addiction. It turns you into a bad metaphor for yourself.”
Amends is a satirical mainstream literary novel about an ill-conceived reality TV show about a group of misfits in rehab. The characters were selected for an unholy combination of freak-show appeal and a TV producer’s ideas of diversity and likability, which bear about the same resemblance to the real world’s version of those qualities that reality TV bears to reality, which is to say an unsettling mixture of almost none and, occasionally, a surprising amount. (Sharptooth, a wolf otherkin, was selected by the producers as focus for the audience to point and laugh; she’s unexpectedly canny in some ways and innocent in others, a lot closer to being an ordinary person with ordinary life problems than a number of seemingly more everyman characters, and generally a lot more than the producers, the other characters, and probably many readers bargained for. She’s my favorite character, both to read about and as one of the few I would actually want to spend any time with in real life.)
The show and the novel are clearly meant as mirrors of each other; the backstage discussions on the show, its characters, and its audience invite the readers to inspect the structure and presumed intent of the novel. The show was intended to pull viewers in with sound-bite squalor, then reveal an unexpected amount of truth; the novel is clearly trying to do the same, but with glittering wit, snappy punchlines, and a takedown of contemporary culture in addition to simple squalor. The characters, initially sketched-in or even caricatures, reveal themselves to be more, both within the show and to the novel’s readers. But how much more? How real is anything when the camera’s rolling?
The prose and dialogue of Amends is a real pleasure, biting and clever and snappy, quotable and re-readable. At times it’s almost too polished. One of the points of Amends is how modern American society is constructed to allow us an endless amount of shallow quick fixes we can use to stave off whatever raw and terrifying emotions or reality we’re hiding from. Reach out, and there’s always something there to grab, whether it’s drugs and booze, TV and internet forums, or the cheap fake emotion of talk show revelations and suspiciously modern-sounding ancient religions. Take away the high, take away the social media, take away the camera, and is there anything left? Much as I enjoyed Tushnet’s way with words, there were a few places where her point might have been better made by leaving out the wisecracks, and letting the emotion come through unpolished and unadorned.
It’s possible that I would have read Amends had I not been hired to critique it in manuscript, as I liked Tushnet’s style, which I was familiar with from reading her blog. Or possibly not, due to not being much of a fan of the genres of both satire or the literary mainstream. If I’d passed it up, that would have been my loss. I confess to having fond feelings for this book due to my participation in its evolution, which no doubt add to my liking for the finished result. However, my personal liking is probably counterbalanced by my usual dislike for the genres it belongs to, and so it all evens out.
Amends isn’t my usual kind of book at all, but I liked it a lot. Sentence by sentence, it’s delicious. And while the satire is funny, a lot of the character interactions are downright hilarious. The metafictional conceit is well-done, and while reality TV is obviously an easy target, many of Tushnet’s subjects are less obvious and thoughtfully explored. I don’t think you have to have any particular interest in reality TV, addiction, or rehab to read the book; I’m not the sort of reader who would normally pick it up, and I liked it anyway. It’s not so much about addiction and sobriety as it is about living an authentic life in a plastic world. Or, sometimes, the other way around.
April 15, 2023
2016 review: At once funny, thought-provoking, and baffling. I picked Amends up because I've enjoyed Tushnet's other writing, but I'm not sure what I'm supposed to make of this book.
My criticisms first: Amends is satire, reviews say. But I'm not sure precisely how. It's a postmodern novel, in that there's an absence of authorial voice; there are simply the competing narratives of its characters, each flawed and none privileged; we're not told whether Medea's personalized approach to recovery or Jen's substance-abuse counseling or Sharptooth's identifying as a wolf is something we're supposed to take seriously or not. All this destabilizes the central story Amends is telling. To destabilize the narrative even further, some of the side characters grow and shrink in importance; Ana (for instance) seems important at the beginning but is nearly forgotten by the end. All this means it's impossible to keep track of how we're meant to see and feel about what's happening in the novel. This means the novel works at being humorous but not necessarily at being a satire, since it's not clear what idea(s) or habit(s) we're supposed to be laughing at.
That said, the novel did make me smile. And it made me think. All of the characters learn humility, holding themselves to an outside standard, seeing themselves as others (and as God) sees them and learning how suffering plays a role in their redemption. Surprisingly, what the characters learn about humility links up with the Orthodox mystical novel Laurus, which could not be more different from Amends in tone and content; the similarity suggests that while Tushnet's plotting may be difficult to piece together, the ideas she handles are serious, and worth thinking about.
I'd also note that Amends is a much better Christian book than books which are actually called Christian. One character does in fact present the Gospel, similar to so-called Christian books, but Tushnet's characters are what might be called honest. None have facile conversion experiences meant to drive home doctrine; they swear and misbehave and generally act in ways that I'm pretty sure, from what I know of Tushnet, that the writer would consider wrong, which only shows that the characters are independent and not held hostage to a religious theme; the book represents life as we actually live it, rather than a whitewashed version. Very refreshing to read a novel like this.
Recommended.
My criticisms first: Amends is satire, reviews say. But I'm not sure precisely how. It's a postmodern novel, in that there's an absence of authorial voice; there are simply the competing narratives of its characters, each flawed and none privileged; we're not told whether Medea's personalized approach to recovery or Jen's substance-abuse counseling or Sharptooth's identifying as a wolf is something we're supposed to take seriously or not. All this destabilizes the central story Amends is telling. To destabilize the narrative even further, some of the side characters grow and shrink in importance; Ana (for instance) seems important at the beginning but is nearly forgotten by the end. All this means it's impossible to keep track of how we're meant to see and feel about what's happening in the novel. This means the novel works at being humorous but not necessarily at being a satire, since it's not clear what idea(s) or habit(s) we're supposed to be laughing at.
That said, the novel did make me smile. And it made me think. All of the characters learn humility, holding themselves to an outside standard, seeing themselves as others (and as God) sees them and learning how suffering plays a role in their redemption. Surprisingly, what the characters learn about humility links up with the Orthodox mystical novel Laurus, which could not be more different from Amends in tone and content; the similarity suggests that while Tushnet's plotting may be difficult to piece together, the ideas she handles are serious, and worth thinking about.
I'd also note that Amends is a much better Christian book than books which are actually called Christian. One character does in fact present the Gospel, similar to so-called Christian books, but Tushnet's characters are what might be called honest. None have facile conversion experiences meant to drive home doctrine; they swear and misbehave and generally act in ways that I'm pretty sure, from what I know of Tushnet, that the writer would consider wrong, which only shows that the characters are independent and not held hostage to a religious theme; the book represents life as we actually live it, rather than a whitewashed version. Very refreshing to read a novel like this.
Recommended.
September 15, 2016
Short Review: I know several people that know the author. And I have read a number of blog posts and articles by Tushnet. So I was happy to pick up the book. I was expecting funny. That is how it was describe to me. But it is not how I would describe the book. There is humor here, but it is a novel about a reality tv program of alcoholics. And the reality of that tragedy is not particularly funny to me (I did a social work internship as an addictions counselor and spent several years volunteering at the program before and after my internship.)
But I also don't want to be too hard on the book. Tushnet is a skilled author and this novel really makes me want to pick up her memoir soon. She handles the addiction issues skillfully and accurately. Her Christian faith is present but handled lightly (there is no heavy monologuing on Christianity or overt evangelism in the book, although issues of faith are discussed.)
My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/amends/
But I also don't want to be too hard on the book. Tushnet is a skilled author and this novel really makes me want to pick up her memoir soon. She handles the addiction issues skillfully and accurately. Her Christian faith is present but handled lightly (there is no heavy monologuing on Christianity or overt evangelism in the book, although issues of faith are discussed.)
My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/amends/
January 11, 2016
Off my beaten path, but thoroughly enjoyable! A great character piece, and at least one character has stayed with me since I finished reading.
It's always a delightful surprise when I discover that an author whose nonfiction I appreciate is also great at fiction! Out of my reading comfort zone, in the best possible way.
It's always a delightful surprise when I discover that an author whose nonfiction I appreciate is also great at fiction! Out of my reading comfort zone, in the best possible way.
March 22, 2016
Brilliantly funny and heartbreaking at the same time. With the exception of the wolf-girl, who seemed to be merely a vehicle for the author's parody of identity politics, the diverse cast of characters were given scope to show their foibles, self-deceptions, attempts at unselfishness, and breakthroughs into grace.
November 12, 2015
real characters, not just mouthpieces for ideas - although this is a novel concerned with exploring lots of ideas
impressive portrayal of addiction without resorting to a litany of degradations
I really liked it, and I hope that the author will write more novels.
impressive portrayal of addiction without resorting to a litany of degradations
I really liked it, and I hope that the author will write more novels.
January 2, 2016
Very funny, easy to read but with a more serious undertone. Comically exaggerated characters that would be unbelievable if the setting weren't reality TV, but in that setting the characters are relatable, hilarious, and poignant all at the same time.
January 19, 2016
That was so much fun.
January 27, 2016
Here is a more fair (and favorable) review than mine could ever be:
http://kirkcenter.org/index.php/bookm...
http://kirkcenter.org/index.php/bookm...
September 20, 2016
A painful but warm and lovely look at people struggling against sin.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews