Cool for You: A Novel

by Eileen Myles, Chris Kraus (Introduction)

Eileen Myles, the popular author of Chelsea Girls and Not Me, the poet who ran an openly female campaign for president in 1992, now gives us a talking masterpiece of a novel that scratches out and rewrites the picture of what fifty years of female life looks like today.

Cool For You is a darkly comic novel that traces the downbeat progress of an Irish American girl through a series of stuttering efforts to leave home. Cool For You's tough girl narrator wants to be an astronaut. Instead, she becomes a poet and takes us on a ferocious tour of, low-end schools, pathetic jobs, and unmade beds. This is a book hell-bent on telling the truth about poor women, how they do and do not get out of the hands of the family and the State.

Genres: Fiction, Queer, LGBT, Poetry, Lesbian, Novels, Coming Of Age

208 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2000

About the author

Eileen Myles is a LAMBDA Literary Award-winning American poet and writer who has produced more than twenty volumes of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, libretti, plays, and performance pieces over the last three decades.

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

when i was a freshman in high school, i had this job answering phones for a few hours after school. the girl who worked the shift before me was a senior, and sometimes she'd hang around after her shift ended to share stories about all the crazy stuff her and her metalhead friends did. i was just starting high school; she was just about to leave it. on the whole, she was tough and cynical, but there was a generosity to these stories - a sense that life has a lot of absurd tricks up its sleeves. she recognized that my adolescent adventure was just beginning, and she was genuinely excited for me. as someone who never had an older sibling, these conversations took on a sage-like quality for me. nowadays i remember them with the same fondness i have for the first danzig album or for "teardrop" skaterat haircuts or for the dave kendall era of 120 minutes.

i thought of these conversations while reading cool for you. it's not a book you read; it's a book you hang out with. and eileen myles would make an equally great pseudo-older sister, even though i'm way too old for one now.

[cypt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kažkada skaičiau Myles Inferno, labai patiko, labai norėjau paskaityti ir Chelsea Girls. O poeziją - pagrindinę kūrybos dalį - kažkaip sugebėjau praskipinti, net kai jie lankėsi LT. To biški gaila.

"Cool for you" - antra knyga, anotacijoj vadinama "nefikciniu romanu"; 2001 m, kai buvo išleista, tai tikrai turėjo būti kažkas netikėto ir naujo, bet šiandien ji jau įsilieja į pvz tokių tekstų kaip Martynenko (tik aišku visai kitos kokybės) nelabai didelį srautelį ir atrodo kaip tik visai pažįstama ir sava. Visgi knyga - ne romanas, o chaotiški, nechronologiški memuarai su paklaidinimais (pvz tėvas miršta tai nukritęs nuo stogo, tai ant sofos), joje nesistengiama papasakoti savo istorijos - įspūdis toks, kad žmogus ant scenos performino, kažką pasakojo, įrašė, ištranskribavo ir išleido. Iš čia ir chaotiška kompozicija, ir minčių šuoliai, visiškas jokio centro ar bendros ašies nebuvimas. Net negalėtum pavadinti viso to brandos romanu (memuarais?), nes brandos romanuose žmogus iš vienokio tampa kitoks, o čia net neaišku, kuo tapo ar tampa memuarų pasakotojai.

Formos atžvilgiu knyga įspūdinga savo nenuoseklumu ir kaip ji vis tiek nepabyra, susidėlioja į atšiaurų, nejaukų vaizdą, kur nejaukumą kuria ne patirtys-pamąstymai-potyriai, o kiekvienas susidūrimas su kitu žmogumi. Dėl to ji, tokia trumputė, man skaitėsi labai sunkiai ir per kančias. Bet turiniu kažkaip nepatikėjau ir visą laiką jaučiausi, tarsi žiūrėčiau į tuos pasakotojus iš šono (ko nepasakysi, pvz, apie puikiąją Ditlevsen), lyg iš jų performanso auditorijos, o ne pažindinčiausi "asmeniškai", kaip tradiciškai skaitydamos esam įpratę. Nervino fragmentai, kur vienam puslapy brolis - artimiausias žmogus, kitam jau užgrobęs pasakotojų vaikystę neteisėtom privilegijom (nu apsispręęęsk), kaip jie, kraustydamiesi iš buto, išnešė savo katiną ("the one i didn't really care about") dėžėj ir paliko prie kažkokios pardės, kaip jie visą vaikystę jautėsi esantys ir norintys būti berniukas, bet paskui jau kažkuriam skyriuj mergaitiškai šnekasi, gina mergaičių teises. Gal toks nenuoseklumas kaip tik žavingas, nes yra visiškai netezinis ir nemanifestinis. Bet man jis žavingas tik teoriškai, kaip išskaičiuota pozicija, o praktiškai, skaitydama, nervinuosi. Am getting old.

Klausydama šia knyga virsiančio performanso, jau būčiau įkalus 2 kokteilius, praleidus pro ausis nemažą dalį pasakojimo, bet užsikabinus už atskirų vaizdinių ir džiaugusis: koks geras kūrinys! Skaitydama to nepraktikavau ir gal dėl to jau nebegriebčiau stačia galva nei Myles poezijos, nei "Chelsea Girls". Kaip ir su muzikos ar autorinio kino stilistika, ne viskas, kas gerai, yra būtent tau ir sukurta.

[dkaufman · Rating 4 out of 5]

If I could I would rate 4.5, really intriguing and charming book

[Beatrice · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the introduction to Cool for You, Chris Kraus writes that Eileen Myles has “transcribed the act of recall.” A less complicated way to say that is that Eileen has written a book that reads like a long conversation. In this book, like in real conversation, stories are rarely told linearly. Instead, they are told forwards and backwards, creating a whole picture of a person and of a life. Each chapter is a whole world.

I can't stop thinking about it. I can't stop thinking about Girl as a concept, as an identity. I can't stop thinking about the gross things you have to do as Girl, the broken histories you have to hold, the dangers, the limits. And it's all fake! Girl could be anything and yet we're taught to believe it's this one thing. Tuh.

Eileen, the narrator and, one assumes, the writer, knows that Girl is wrong, can't possibly be enough to hold the whole idea of Person, which is what Girl is, a person. And if Girl can't do that, can't be a person, then what is Girl? Who is a Girl? People have desires and ideas and an identity.

Cool for You fucks gender and sexuality right up. There's an incredible queering that happens that feels expansive.

This book is beautiful and devastating and hopeful and alive and very queer, both format and content. Poets should rule the world, or at least Eileen should.

[Alexandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book so much. It lives squarely in the hungry micro-conundrums of human interaction, where everyone is odd and darkly historied and so are you, and doom seems close and yet far off because you're young. Myles expertly articulates both the strangely cobbled worlds of other souls--those unmistakably Northeast USA souls!--and the colorful, emotional funhouse-mirror fantasies one has alone with themselves. Navigating the endless web-weaving between the two hasn't felt as vividly wrought in a while.

[MariNaomi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This wasn't a fast, easy read, but it was a beautiful one. She could really paint a scene, a moment, a feeling. You can tell she's a poet.

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read an article about Eileen Myles recently, and the writer described Myles as someone who has "an intense yet introspective interest in humanity". An interest in her own humanity, and in the lives of the humans around her. I have that too. That's why I like her so much. I've had a crush on her ever since I discovered this book, almost ten years ago. However, if my teen self had ever met her teen self, back in the 60s and 70s, I would have been absolutely terrified. Sure, I wanted to be Peter Pan too, but I was definitely more a Wendy type. Ms. Myles would have crushed me with a sideways glance. She would have kicked my ass.

Fast forward a few decades and I think we would have a lot to chat about were we to meet one another now. What is it I love? She's a funny, fierce, unapologetic, wise soul. I love the way Myles just throws everything out there, into the wide open, page after page, in whatever chaotic fashion she feels like. It's not linear, it's hardly chronological, but it doesn't matter because what she writes is so tough and honest and poignant and raw. A stream of consciousness ramble seems very natural in this book. Like flipping through an old photo album, and telling this story and that one, back and forth through time and place. It's how memory works and it works well here as memoir and novel both. Whatever it is. It is what it is and it's damn good.

[Olivia]

Ohhhh Eileen. What is there to say that I haven’t already said. They are singular, they write in the most beautiful, messy, gross, & genuine way about, in this case, girlhood, queer growing up - what does it mean to be a girl anyway? I like the way they write about that, it feels like me. I just want to try their life on. I have never read someone who writes so much like my mind feels like. While this book didn’t hold on to me as tightly as a lot of their other work has, but I still love it.

“I believe in sound. It’s the tiniest shaking, when the colors are gone, and smells disperse, the shaking continues, its effect is infinite, standing in a bowl of sand and fine reefs and wind which is something I do not understand, the lap lap lap of the water speaking to the moon, the struggling bug, nothing in the world staying still, every dropped ruler in a classroom forty years ago is a tingling moment rushing past Mars. My dog comes running and we return to the car. The click of my tooth on cement. Composers say the sounds of the orchestra playing on the Titanic can still be heard someplace at the bottom of the sea, maybe not even the very bottom, but pretty far down, and not just one spot but throughout, the Gunty sound of orchestra music as some people got in the boats. There were a few, not enough, but the signal was heard.”

[Sophie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reads like coming home and talking to a close friend about your day... enjoyed the first 3/4 of the book most

[Bec Daniels · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eileen Myles’ prose is so rough and scattered, it feels drunk on itself at times. Takes you on a staccato ride through Irish Catholicism, mental institutions, her Massachusetts home, and drinking.

[lou]

took me a while to get through, but enjoyed it! disconnected & disjointed & deeply sensory in the way a memory is

[Colin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably like 75% of how I perform masculinity is based on the picture of Eileen Myles on the cover of this book.

[Natanya · Rating 5 out of 5]

I very deeply appreciate Eileen's view of the world, and this book extensively encapsulates their life and philosophy without being needlessly long or wordy.

[Olive · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Eileen Myles is a Bostonian and a poet. Arguably a Bostonian first and foremost. Her rhythm is stout, staccato. While all the vignettes connect, this collection relies heavily on non linear time. How everything that has happened is happening now and will happen again. A poets retelling of her life.

It’s about being working class, about the function of the state, about family happenstance and the only way they could be. There’s a matter of factness to this retelling, but a matter of factness that was recorded with a heavy eye, and a heavy heart. Attention to detail that could only be caught by a lover of the mundane. There are no frills, but there is a healthy dose of catholic shame. A hunger for forgiveness, but a lack of drive. The collection centers almost entirely on her home. Her upbringing. A concept she reveres and also fears she lacks many times during her youth. It happened and it’s happening and it will happen again.

[fer pacheco · Rating 5 out of 5]

wey le amo. es entre novela/autobiografía que tiene metido por pedazos reflexiones sobre el espacio, las relaciones, etc. la pondría en una misma categoría con tarantela y mean a una categoría particular a autobiografías.


hay mucha discontinuidad, en general eso me gustó mucho pero a veces no supe de quién hablaba. la reflexión del sistema solar 10/10

[Elina · Rating 5 out of 5]

omg….. I need about 5 business days to get over the feeling of this and I’ll be back with words maybe but they will be too empty and not enough to capture what I just experienced so I will say for now:
I’ve been flirting with this book for the past year, never feeling like it was the correct moment to read it,,, until now… and it was right and it needed to open up to me when I would be open as well and ready to receive the message and the grace towards myself,, and accept the truth and ugliness and “I am human, I decided.” and I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Eileen’s writing makes me feel, ultimately, human.

[Agnes Stenqvist · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5? Gillar men tappar. Tänker verkligen på att eileen myles är en blandning av fran lebowitz och Patti Smith (vsg spaning). Gillade Chelsea girls mkt mer. Men snyggt omslag så plus för det.

[Dr. Bower · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have a new favorite book

[Emilija · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.4

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

not cool enough for me :( but I liked the bit about planets and the color blue

[aer · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was a chore to get through. I'm disappointed that I didn't like it more. There's no doubt that Myles is a talented writer and I very much respected her feelings in her memoir... but the disjointed & scatter-brained narrative was just not enjoyable.

[Ariel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book. Beautiful writing. The title, choice of photo for the cover, and description of the book as a "novel," however, make absolutely no sense.

[Emily Scholten · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this book and I love Eileen Myles. One of those books that you don’t know what the heck it’s about or what the plot is, but you love every sentence.

[Andrew Pisaturo]

the shifting lens of memory, one of the best books ive ever read

[Mia · Rating 3 out of 5]

not my favorite of their work but the last three or four pages knocked me on my back

[Laura Mustard · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found it kind of weird and hard to get into at first. I got invested about halfway through. My overall review: mostly cool.

[Wild Waters · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though I appreciated the memories of the fictional Eileen and the fact that they were told in a natural way a person would remember things - incoherently and unstructured - I still think the question is, how relevant parts of the story were.
That is a hard thing to mention if you read a kind of memoir and surely the author did think all that was written down needed to be said. The reader shall make of it what he wants.
I like this rebellious mindset and to challenge the rules we are used to follow as readers of fiction, but in the end the story needs to have an added value to justify the paper that was used for the print.
For me, the core of the story was what it meant to be a girl/woman in the time she grew up, how she identified herself and also slowly realised her attraction to women. It was interesting to me - and I guess most people who would find this book might be drawn to it exactly because they belong to the LGBTQ community and need to see other people's experiences. The rest of who Eileen was or is or became was too vague for me or hard to grasp from what we got in the book. I wish it was more.

[Jonathan Katabira · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know why this failed to connect with me in the ways I wanted it to even though there were moments in here that I found intriguing which in part was helped by the rather poetic, detached tone that the author adopted through out the novel. Couldn't help but feel ambivalent to that. Not everything in here completely lands the mark but when it does, the high fizzles out really quickly. Didn't care for most of the family members or people who were name-dropped which I could attribute to the disjointed style in which the book was written. It would get kinda of confusing at times. But I did really enjoy the parts where the author wrote about coming to terms with their sexuality and Catholic upbringing. So yeah, this was a mixed bag for me.

[lucien alexander “sasha” · Rating 2 out of 5]

i dunno, "experimental" "novels" don't really do it for me. i might've liked it better as a book of poetry.

[Shawn Mooney (Shawn Breathes Books)]

Too experimentally rambling for my tastes. Some crisp, introspective prose, though. Abandoned a quarter of the way in.