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O Fallen Angel: A Darkly Hilarious Literary Satire of Mother-Daughter Trauma and the American Family
The haunting debut novel that put Kate Zambreno on the map, O Fallen Angel, is a provocative, voice-driven story of a family in crisis—and, more broadly, the crisis of the American family—now repackaged and with a new introduction by Lidia Yuknavitch.Inspired by Francis Bacon's Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, Kate Zambreno's brilliant novel is a triptych of modern-day America set in a banal Midwestern landscape, told from three distinct, unforgettable points of view.
There is "Mommy," a portrait of housewife psychosis, fenced in by her own small mind. There is "Maggie," Mommy's unfortunate daughter whom she infects with fairytales. Then there is the mysterious martyr-figure Malachi, a Cassandra in army fatigues, the Septimus Smith to Mommy's Mrs. Dalloway, who stands at the foot of the highway holding signs of fervent prophecy, gaping at the bottomless abyss of the human condition, while SUVs scream past.
Deeply poignant, sometimes hilarious, and other times horrifying, O Fallen Angel is satire at its best.
There is "Mommy," a portrait of housewife psychosis, fenced in by her own small mind. There is "Maggie," Mommy's unfortunate daughter whom she infects with fairytales. Then there is the mysterious martyr-figure Malachi, a Cassandra in army fatigues, the Septimus Smith to Mommy's Mrs. Dalloway, who stands at the foot of the highway holding signs of fervent prophecy, gaping at the bottomless abyss of the human condition, while SUVs scream past.
Deeply poignant, sometimes hilarious, and other times horrifying, O Fallen Angel is satire at its best.
166 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 1, 2009
16 people are currently reading
1599 people want to read
About the author
Kate Zambreno
28 books791 followersKate Zambreno is the author of the novels Green Girl (Harper Perennial) and O Fallen Angel (Harper Perennial). She is also the author of Heroines (Semiotext(e)'s Active Agents) and Book of Mutter (Semiotexte(e)'s Native Agents). A collection of talks and essays, The Appendix Project, is forthcoming from Semiotext(e) in April 2019, and a collection of stories and other writing, Screen Tests, is forthcoming from Harper Perennial in June 2019. She is at work on a novel, Drifts, and a study of Hervé Guibert. She teaches at Columbia University and Sarah Lawrence College.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 70 reviews
May 30, 2019
3.5
Kate Zambreno’s debut novel, O Fallen Angel was first published in 2009 after winning a contest to be published by Lidia Yuknavitch’s press, who were looking for books that were “Undoing the Novel”. Well, this is certainly it. Zambreno cites Kathy Acker as her “spiritual mentor”, and while I’ve (yet) to read any of Acker’s work, her staple as one of the most avant garde modernist writers of the twentieth century would surely be proud of this first novel.
O Fallen Angel is a fierce, unflinching satire about mainstream suburban Midwestern culture (but also, by extent, about western culture). It was heavily inspired by Francis Bacon’s work, especially his triptych “Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion”, in turns inspired by The Oresteia. To say OFA is a modern tragedy would be accurate and with that image in mind, the story that followed in this compacted first novel was a haunting and terrifying one, made bearable only by incredibly inventive narrative voice and the format: snappy chapters that alternated between stream of consciousness and a style of prose flash-fiction, we follow the unraveling of Mommy, a controlling matriarch mourning her “bad egg” daughter, Maggie, a self-destructive twenty something who just wants to ‘feel something’; and Malachi, an elusive prophet figure that appears only once or twice to mourn the current state of society.
It is an impressive debut with many layers, one of those obscure novels that fit a particular subgenre that won’t appeal to everyone but that showcases Kate Zambreno’s skillful writing right away, and is a good “revival addition” to the newest trend of “otherworldly fiction” -- fans of Ottessa Moshfegh will find much to like in this book.
Kate Zambreno’s debut novel, O Fallen Angel was first published in 2009 after winning a contest to be published by Lidia Yuknavitch’s press, who were looking for books that were “Undoing the Novel”. Well, this is certainly it. Zambreno cites Kathy Acker as her “spiritual mentor”, and while I’ve (yet) to read any of Acker’s work, her staple as one of the most avant garde modernist writers of the twentieth century would surely be proud of this first novel.
O Fallen Angel is a fierce, unflinching satire about mainstream suburban Midwestern culture (but also, by extent, about western culture). It was heavily inspired by Francis Bacon’s work, especially his triptych “Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion”, in turns inspired by The Oresteia. To say OFA is a modern tragedy would be accurate and with that image in mind, the story that followed in this compacted first novel was a haunting and terrifying one, made bearable only by incredibly inventive narrative voice and the format: snappy chapters that alternated between stream of consciousness and a style of prose flash-fiction, we follow the unraveling of Mommy, a controlling matriarch mourning her “bad egg” daughter, Maggie, a self-destructive twenty something who just wants to ‘feel something’; and Malachi, an elusive prophet figure that appears only once or twice to mourn the current state of society.
It is an impressive debut with many layers, one of those obscure novels that fit a particular subgenre that won’t appeal to everyone but that showcases Kate Zambreno’s skillful writing right away, and is a good “revival addition” to the newest trend of “otherworldly fiction” -- fans of Ottessa Moshfegh will find much to like in this book.
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March 14, 2017Strap on your helmets and goggles and buckle in, because this book will knock you down if you’re not ready. Originally published several years ago by a teeny indie press, Zambreno got her inspiration for the book from the triptych Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion by Francis Bacon. (Which is why I picked it up – I love Francis Bacon so much, I carry a picture of him in my wallet.) The novel is centered around three characters: Mommy, a small-minded, racist, uber-exaggerated perfect housewife figure; Maggie, a troubled young woman who has gone down the path of drugs and anonymous sex, who also happens to be Mommy’s daughter; and Malachi, who stands on the side of the road with signs declaring the end of the world. As the narrative switches back and forth, Zambreno works magic with the book’s language and voices. Who is the fallen angel here? Read this for the style and writing. The book is visceral and astonishing – there are not many writers like Zambreno out there. Bonus: The new edition features an introduction by Lidia Yuknavitch.
— Liberty Hardy
from The Best Books We Read In January 2017: http://bookriot.com/2017/02/01/riot-r...
— Liberty Hardy
from The Best Books We Read In January 2017: http://bookriot.com/2017/02/01/riot-r...
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June 23, 2023Kate Zambreno is one of those authors that gives me hope for American fiction, an actual no holds-barred fuck-you-motherfucker writer. I should say this is a first novel for sure -- Zambreno comes out the gate hot, almost violent in her desire to experiment and make her mark -- but to me that's part of the charm. Sure, it might not be the most immaculate thing, but guess what? She has the balls to actually go out and write something that breaks the mold, which in an ambitionless literary era, is a godsend. Green Girl is still a far finer novel -- more honed, more a series of precise sniper shots rather than a spray of semi-automatic fire -- but O Fallen Angel deserves to be read too.
April 5, 2017
1) zie de cover en weet: dit is een venijnig boek, heel erg in-your-face. Zambreno doet niet aan subtiliteiten in O Fallen Angel. doodernstig & hard ironisch tegelijk.
2) Zambreno schreef zelf een review over deze roman & zei: ‘It is a stupid, terrible book, about the stupid and the terrible.’ in het interview dat is opgenomen in deze editie wordt naar die woorden gevraagd. Zambreno: ‘(..) I think in many ways for this project I was interested in really bad writing. I guess this is how I'm influenced by Acker, in clichés, , there's a line ending a Maggie section 'The first cut is the deepest', which I'm totally quoting from that Cat Stevens song, tunneling inside Maggie's head, and at this moment of total self-annihilation over an ex-lover Maggie is really trying to be deep and poetic but she's just a photocopy, a profound but then ultimately banal photocopy of a pop song, and I'm interested in all that, how our brains are colonized with well-thread language, yet we're convinced we're terribly profound and individual. When I read that line at readings people always are kind of silent, but I find it so funny—like look! look how bad and awful this is! this is really bad writing! but people are silent because I think they're a bit embarrassed for me, which I love. and look how mean I'm being, how cruel! It's a terrible, terrible book!’
3) ‘Postcard from America’!!! fijn. (https://www.guernicamag.com/postcard-...)
2) Zambreno schreef zelf een review over deze roman & zei: ‘It is a stupid, terrible book, about the stupid and the terrible.’ in het interview dat is opgenomen in deze editie wordt naar die woorden gevraagd. Zambreno: ‘(..) I think in many ways for this project I was interested in really bad writing. I guess this is how I'm influenced by Acker, in clichés, , there's a line ending a Maggie section 'The first cut is the deepest', which I'm totally quoting from that Cat Stevens song, tunneling inside Maggie's head, and at this moment of total self-annihilation over an ex-lover Maggie is really trying to be deep and poetic but she's just a photocopy, a profound but then ultimately banal photocopy of a pop song, and I'm interested in all that, how our brains are colonized with well-thread language, yet we're convinced we're terribly profound and individual. When I read that line at readings people always are kind of silent, but I find it so funny—like look! look how bad and awful this is! this is really bad writing! but people are silent because I think they're a bit embarrassed for me, which I love. and look how mean I'm being, how cruel! It's a terrible, terrible book!’
3) ‘Postcard from America’!!! fijn. (https://www.guernicamag.com/postcard-...)
December 7, 2021
Norman Rockwell whomst?
October 12, 2010
I really liked this short collection of three portraits written in a stream-of-consciousness style. It's not at all like many of the books I normally read, which tend to be pretty straight-forward in terms of narrative style, but in my opinion, what Zambreno was doing wasn't so much telling a story - although she was - as much as she was compiling all of the messages heaped upon a certain class of American woman and using them to craft two feminine archetypes - that of the godly, family-oriented, Juicy-sweatsuit-clad Mommy, whose entire life is focused around her husband and her children and who loves SUVs and pink and her dog named Laci (as in Peterson), and her daughter, the manic-depressive, promiscuous, drug-abusing Maggie, who is this gaping hole of need and conflict and self-destruction. Both archetypes are instantly recognizable and equally destructive to the soul of the woman who tries to occupy that role. The narratives of the two women run alongside a third narrative, told from the perspective of a homeless man who serves as a Cassandra of sorts for the rest of the story.
Don't pick up this book expecting nuance or subtlety, because that is not the point. And don't expect to find feminist or political perspectives that are wholly revolutionary, like you'll expect to have your head blown apart by the originality of her political thought. Rather, this is writing that comes almost entirely from the gut, which is exactly where it hit me.
Don't pick up this book expecting nuance or subtlety, because that is not the point. And don't expect to find feminist or political perspectives that are wholly revolutionary, like you'll expect to have your head blown apart by the originality of her political thought. Rather, this is writing that comes almost entirely from the gut, which is exactly where it hit me.
May 6, 2013
A shorter and thinner piece of work than Zambreno's superior "Green Girl". This is the meeting-point of "Mrs Dalloway" and Marilyn Manson, but the writing doesn't have the spikiness of Kathy Acker. We get studies of banal lives in banal phrasing, and the allusions to Woolf are just a reminder of the tenderness in that novel that is missing here. The sparseness of the description of Maggie's breakdown does convey the bleakness of her life very well.
November 9, 2024
Simply genius, and perfect for times like these. I will have to read more of her works in the near future.
August 22, 2024
It's certainly a remarkable book, a triumph of voice and vision, but the characters are so flat, so predictable, and yes, this is the point, but there's often a redundancy in the book, you could pare it down to 4 chapters, maybe 6. Having read a later work ...by Zambreno I know she would grow as a writer and certainly there is already much that is provocative and daring and perceptive here. Influences seem obvious: Jackson, Acker, Jelinek. An Early Work, clearly - a debut, in fact, but glimmering with promise, later fulfilled.
Reread in August 2024: I feel the same, although the Virginia Woolf influence was more obvious this time. On the whole, more a book to speak about in terms of its forthright indictment of stifling middle class values than an especially deep or complex work of fiction. A blunt force attack.
Reread in August 2024: I feel the same, although the Virginia Woolf influence was more obvious this time. On the whole, more a book to speak about in terms of its forthright indictment of stifling middle class values than an especially deep or complex work of fiction. A blunt force attack.
February 15, 2024
Amazing. I will read anything Kate Zambreno writes.
June 14, 2015
Arg debut. Experimentell och civilisationskritisk Great American Novel i novellaformat. Är förtjust i idén med Baconmålning som inspiration m.m. men hade föredragit en fullängdsroman om bara karaktären Maggie.
April 3, 2018
Can't guarantee that there won't be spoilers, and I'm on mobile, so... sorry, y'all.
God... I'm not a Catholic Midwestern exile, but I did grow up in and later leave a conservative Midwestern small town, and as such, a LOT of this resonated. I'm lucky, though, that while I was pretty sheltered by circumstance, I didn't have a controlling (controlled) mother to rebel against. So I navigated my late teens and early 20s... not without getting some scars, I guess? But not nearly as turbulently as Maggie is navigating hers. I had, and still have, my mom to fall back on. Maggie and her mother's relationship is fundamentally broken -- in ways that, without spoiling too much of the ending, I don't foresee being fixed. That's the worst part about this. You want them to come to an understanding, you want them to open up to each other, but Mommy has chosen her bubble -- and you could argue that Maggie has chosen her poisons, but I won't, because I don't believe it's true. Blaming Mommy for her own situation isn't entirely fair, but her unrepentant refusal to see her daughter for who she is rather than who she was or who she should be... that cut deep, and I feel a deep anger on Maggie's behalf as a result. Like... I have empathy for both Mommy and Maggie here, but you'll be hard pressed to convince me that choosing your bubble to that degree is justifiable or pitiable, or at least more so than the consequences of choosing that bubble and the effects it has on the people you love, or the people you raise.
And I don't think that this book was trying to do so -- I don't think it was trying to take a side, just presenting two sides of an awful situation. I'm just inclined to side with Maggie, is what I'm saying.
Anyway. Compelling book, devoured it in one sitting... have several opinions, having grown up surrounded by shades of the attitudes depicted in it.
God... I'm not a Catholic Midwestern exile, but I did grow up in and later leave a conservative Midwestern small town, and as such, a LOT of this resonated. I'm lucky, though, that while I was pretty sheltered by circumstance, I didn't have a controlling (controlled) mother to rebel against. So I navigated my late teens and early 20s... not without getting some scars, I guess? But not nearly as turbulently as Maggie is navigating hers. I had, and still have, my mom to fall back on. Maggie and her mother's relationship is fundamentally broken -- in ways that, without spoiling too much of the ending, I don't foresee being fixed. That's the worst part about this. You want them to come to an understanding, you want them to open up to each other, but Mommy has chosen her bubble -- and you could argue that Maggie has chosen her poisons, but I won't, because I don't believe it's true. Blaming Mommy for her own situation isn't entirely fair, but her unrepentant refusal to see her daughter for who she is rather than who she was or who she should be... that cut deep, and I feel a deep anger on Maggie's behalf as a result. Like... I have empathy for both Mommy and Maggie here, but you'll be hard pressed to convince me that choosing your bubble to that degree is justifiable or pitiable, or at least more so than the consequences of choosing that bubble and the effects it has on the people you love, or the people you raise.
And I don't think that this book was trying to do so -- I don't think it was trying to take a side, just presenting two sides of an awful situation. I'm just inclined to side with Maggie, is what I'm saying.
Anyway. Compelling book, devoured it in one sitting... have several opinions, having grown up surrounded by shades of the attitudes depicted in it.
February 4, 2018
It's hard to describe the exact feeling of growing up female, in/around upper-middle-class suburbs, post-9/11, and pre-Obama, and the grotesqueness of this alienation, and the midwestern ignorance-is-bliss attitude. Kate Zambreno achieves a description of this feeling, through O Fallen Angel. The experimental and explosive contents of this book will forever be a commentary reference text for the early 2000s period of my life. Dealing with real pain ~ Iraq war, gender role prisons, mental health stuff, blah ~ is replaced with obsessive viewings of The Bachelor while eating snack mix, wearing a Juicy track suit, no shit. This book is told in a triptych: there's Mommy, manic uppity housewife of nightmares, obese and repressed, religious and racist, deteriorating but thinking she's "happy". Maggie, her bipolar daughter who betrayed her by moving to Chicago to study psychology at college, is obsessed with a self-destructive masochistic sex, becomes addicted to her schizo meds, etc. Maggie reminds me a lot of me and my "alt" girl friends, growing up in safe and loving families, and feeling hurt and pain, not really knowing why. (Some of my female friends were mis-diagnosed by doctors as bipolar, just bc of wild emotional breakdowns in our 20s.) Then there's Malachi, a prophet holding poetic signs for peace over the highway, a reference to a real anti-Iraq-war activist who burned to death in Chicago in 2006. All of these characters are so separate, in their separate chapters, never actually dealing or facing each other, or knowing each other. When they do, they watch each other fall apart. The success of this very short novel (I read it in one sitting) is how sometimes the writing is so much, so bad, it could have come straight out of their amateur housewife/emo-girl diaries ~ the wild shitty-ness of it all, the horrible feeling of being alive.
August 4, 2024
📚 Sebuah keluarga Amerika yg tengah menghadapi krisis. Mommy, seorang ibu rumah tangga terjebak dlm pikirannya sendiri yg sempit.
Maggie, putri Mommy tumbuh besar dgn dongeng² dari ibunya. Dan Malachi, seorang pria misterius dgn seragam tentara yg sering terlihat di pinggir jalan raya.
💬 "Not all self-involved and self-ish and anything else involving a self which is not very womanly." - O Fallen Angel, Kate Zambreno
🕵️♀️ Bersetting di wilayah Midwest Amerika yg monoton & membosankan, novel ini diceritakan dari POV 3 dgn berfokus pd Mommy, Maggie & Malachi.
Alur ceritanya tidak linear, dgn banyak kilas balik & perubahan sudut pandang. Gaya bahasa penulis dlm novel ini penuh dgn ironi & satire 🔥
Yg aku rasakan, tiga tokoh ini terjebak dlm psikosis & ketidakmampuannya utk berhubungan dgn dunia luar 😔
Mommy memiliki gangguan mental yg parah. Dia suka mengisolasi dgn menciptakan dunia kecilnya sendiri yg penuh dgn khayalan & ketakutan. Dia suka berbicara sendiri & terobsesi dgn tugas² rumah tangga. Dia menghadapi tekanan yg dihadapi semua wanita utk memenuhi standar tertentu 😔
Lalu, aku melihat Maggie sbg contoh anak dari pola asuh buruk dari kedua orang tuanya. Karena dia dibesarkan dgn dongeng² oleh ibunya, Maggie jadi kesulitan beradaptasi & menghadapi dunia nyata 😔 Sedangkan, Malachi. Dia gila & putus asa terhadapa kondisinya sendiri 😔
Dari sini, penulis berhasil mengangkat krisis dlm keluarga & masyarakat Amerika modern 👍
Penulis jg sukses mengangkat isu kehampaan, keterasingan & ketidakstabilan mental dlm sebuah keluarga yg tampak biasa saja 👍
💌 Melalui novel ini, aku belajar bahwa kesehatan mental itu sangatlah penting 🙂 Karena kalau mental kita buruk, itu pasti berdampak pada kondisi fisik kita 🙂
Maggie, putri Mommy tumbuh besar dgn dongeng² dari ibunya. Dan Malachi, seorang pria misterius dgn seragam tentara yg sering terlihat di pinggir jalan raya.
💬 "Not all self-involved and self-ish and anything else involving a self which is not very womanly." - O Fallen Angel, Kate Zambreno
🕵️♀️ Bersetting di wilayah Midwest Amerika yg monoton & membosankan, novel ini diceritakan dari POV 3 dgn berfokus pd Mommy, Maggie & Malachi.
Alur ceritanya tidak linear, dgn banyak kilas balik & perubahan sudut pandang. Gaya bahasa penulis dlm novel ini penuh dgn ironi & satire 🔥
Yg aku rasakan, tiga tokoh ini terjebak dlm psikosis & ketidakmampuannya utk berhubungan dgn dunia luar 😔
Mommy memiliki gangguan mental yg parah. Dia suka mengisolasi dgn menciptakan dunia kecilnya sendiri yg penuh dgn khayalan & ketakutan. Dia suka berbicara sendiri & terobsesi dgn tugas² rumah tangga. Dia menghadapi tekanan yg dihadapi semua wanita utk memenuhi standar tertentu 😔
Lalu, aku melihat Maggie sbg contoh anak dari pola asuh buruk dari kedua orang tuanya. Karena dia dibesarkan dgn dongeng² oleh ibunya, Maggie jadi kesulitan beradaptasi & menghadapi dunia nyata 😔 Sedangkan, Malachi. Dia gila & putus asa terhadapa kondisinya sendiri 😔
Dari sini, penulis berhasil mengangkat krisis dlm keluarga & masyarakat Amerika modern 👍
Penulis jg sukses mengangkat isu kehampaan, keterasingan & ketidakstabilan mental dlm sebuah keluarga yg tampak biasa saja 👍
💌 Melalui novel ini, aku belajar bahwa kesehatan mental itu sangatlah penting 🙂 Karena kalau mental kita buruk, itu pasti berdampak pada kondisi fisik kita 🙂
September 5, 2024
Rating: 4.5
What happened was I read CLARICE LISPECTOR, who is one of the best Writers I have cum across. PERIOD. And CLARICE (in my HANNIBAL LECTOR VOICE) led me to KATE ZAMBRENO. One look at how her words came 2gether on the page and I was in. Book reads like part Krazy, SUBURBAN MEMOIR and END OF THE WORLD HALLUCINATIONS. Based on REAL shit. Young Girls will never change and will forever be an Adversary of their MAMAS. And MENTAL ILLNESS is at an all-time high/running rampant in the street like the PROPHET in these Narratives, as we all wait for the MESSIAH to Return or Get LEFT BEHIND. This novel is FRAGMENTS n LITERARY SPIELING as high art. Its like reading a BOOK on The WALL as piece of ART WORK. Miss ZAMBRENO breathes words onto the page where the rest of Us mortals are struggling to get our next Breath. And THIS was her first joint/winner of a contest she won to get Published. She BROKE the Novel (which I think is how I came across it cuz Im ALWAYS looking for NOVELS that AINT NOVELS butt still read like a damn good BOOK that its NOT.....or something like that). I B crushing on women who kan write like this. Just that good shit. CHARLENE ELSBY is another woman whose writing digs into ya PSYCHE so that U cum away from the Book like U just been thru THERAPY. And BETTER for it. O FALLEN ANGEL aint a happy story overall tho. Butt its social commentary is just the ENLIGHTENMENT You need. Agreed. Git U sum.
What happened was I read CLARICE LISPECTOR, who is one of the best Writers I have cum across. PERIOD. And CLARICE (in my HANNIBAL LECTOR VOICE) led me to KATE ZAMBRENO. One look at how her words came 2gether on the page and I was in. Book reads like part Krazy, SUBURBAN MEMOIR and END OF THE WORLD HALLUCINATIONS. Based on REAL shit. Young Girls will never change and will forever be an Adversary of their MAMAS. And MENTAL ILLNESS is at an all-time high/running rampant in the street like the PROPHET in these Narratives, as we all wait for the MESSIAH to Return or Get LEFT BEHIND. This novel is FRAGMENTS n LITERARY SPIELING as high art. Its like reading a BOOK on The WALL as piece of ART WORK. Miss ZAMBRENO breathes words onto the page where the rest of Us mortals are struggling to get our next Breath. And THIS was her first joint/winner of a contest she won to get Published. She BROKE the Novel (which I think is how I came across it cuz Im ALWAYS looking for NOVELS that AINT NOVELS butt still read like a damn good BOOK that its NOT.....or something like that). I B crushing on women who kan write like this. Just that good shit. CHARLENE ELSBY is another woman whose writing digs into ya PSYCHE so that U cum away from the Book like U just been thru THERAPY. And BETTER for it. O FALLEN ANGEL aint a happy story overall tho. Butt its social commentary is just the ENLIGHTENMENT You need. Agreed. Git U sum.
November 22, 2023
Very different from other books I have read recently. Zambreno writes in a stream of consciousness style that isn’t plot-centered. Rather, it focuses on vignettes of three characters: Mommy, Maggie, and Malachi. I found the Mommy/Maggie characters and relationship the most interesting, and didn’t really understand the Malachi character’s purpose to the book.
Mommy believes herself to be the ideal wife and mother who has dedicated her whole life to her children and husband - as she believes any good religious woman should. She can’t bear to think about anything unpleasant, so chooses not to, which is why she struggles so much with how her daughter Maggie turned out. I think Zambreno painted a picture of this woman who feels she has selflessly devoted her life to others, but really her actions come from a selfish place of wanting to control Maggie so that she lives up to Mommy’s traditional ideas of what a woman should be, rather than trying to understand and help Maggie and her mental illness.
Mommy believes herself to be the ideal wife and mother who has dedicated her whole life to her children and husband - as she believes any good religious woman should. She can’t bear to think about anything unpleasant, so chooses not to, which is why she struggles so much with how her daughter Maggie turned out. I think Zambreno painted a picture of this woman who feels she has selflessly devoted her life to others, but really her actions come from a selfish place of wanting to control Maggie so that she lives up to Mommy’s traditional ideas of what a woman should be, rather than trying to understand and help Maggie and her mental illness.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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June 3, 2024wow kate zambreno is angry. cool to see her early stuff and how her concerns & voice have changed over time, she is much more measured, circumspect later on, it’s like following the development of a sense of self. bc this book is incredibly unsympathetic, fiery, screaming, feels like how i am when i’m monologuing abt my issues with newton lol. esp the essays at the end of this, so political& outraged.
i liked how self-contained this novella was, how it clicked together despite not having an arc. i also like how she refers to mommy maggie & malachi as “figures” or “nervous systems,” instead of characters, she has a really clear idea of what she’s doing and doesn’t need to subscribe to an externally enforced concept of narrative….also in the essay at the end she talks about having no academic education in creative writing and how she enters her works unsure if they will be poetry, essay, or fiction.
also how she outlines her dream mfa program was epic
i liked how self-contained this novella was, how it clicked together despite not having an arc. i also like how she refers to mommy maggie & malachi as “figures” or “nervous systems,” instead of characters, she has a really clear idea of what she’s doing and doesn’t need to subscribe to an externally enforced concept of narrative….also in the essay at the end she talks about having no academic education in creative writing and how she enters her works unsure if they will be poetry, essay, or fiction.
also how she outlines her dream mfa program was epic
February 27, 2017
This book was astounding. It's crammed with ugly clichés (that's the point) and is grammatically subversive. I loved it. It was so very disturbing, because by exposing and exploring the clichés, Kate Zambreno has challenged standard narrative "wisdom" and ironically, I was drawn in to the stereotypical horror of the lives of what Zambreno calls "figures" rather than characters. I think that's the point, she's asking us to look at the "gaze" - our societal gaze, how we reduce and belittle - and other. Ironically, but reducing and reducing the "figures" to their essences, she exposes us as readers too. I couldn't help being drawn into the drama, I couldn't help questioning my assumptions.
Such a startling reading experience. I was moved. What a talent! I so look forward to reading more of her wonderful, weird work.
Such a startling reading experience. I was moved. What a talent! I so look forward to reading more of her wonderful, weird work.
August 4, 2018
I give this 4 stars because the writing style is phenomenally effective. This book is a visceral experience. Just the style in which the prose was laid out created such claustrophobic feelings in me. But, at the end, I feel like I've charted this territory and these characters as a reader, before. I felt nothing new or enlightening (which can happen by being disturbed). Although, I must say, I enjoyed Malachi's point of view. That was the most interesting one.
I do suggest, after reading the novel, you look up Francis Bacon's paintings. She bases her writing of the feelings his pieces create and I can totally see that.
This is a solid novel that represents the darkness of our times incredibly well. It just did not tell me anything new - which probably says more about my psyche then the actual novel :)
I do suggest, after reading the novel, you look up Francis Bacon's paintings. She bases her writing of the feelings his pieces create and I can totally see that.
This is a solid novel that represents the darkness of our times incredibly well. It just did not tell me anything new - which probably says more about my psyche then the actual novel :)
March 5, 2019
This is the sort of book that I'm really glad I read but made me feel quite stupid. I read that the three perspectives were based on Francis Bacon's triptych Three Figures for Studies at the Base of a Crucifixion, which is intense and grotesque. I could say the same about this novel: the writing intense and the characters grotesque. I was hoping I would find more of a connection between the paintings themselves and the three characters, but I did not--not because they weren't there but because I didn't read it well enough. I think I'll probably read it again at some point when I have fewer distractions. It's an MFA-kind of read (in a good way, at least to me). I luuurve Kate Zambreno.
June 24, 2021
Everyone in this tragic satire of descent has a name that starts with an M. For middling? The bad boyfriend character is even called Marlon, as in Brando. The narratives are American classics, suburban white ennui. It is told in the broad strokes of a children's book, yet the contours are acidic and full of truth. Stereotypes exist for a reason. There are shades of Acker, albeit with a straightforwardness. But it does also form an effective triptych of characters. It's Zambreno's first, definitely not her most memorable.
March 20, 2023
En karikatyr av en amerikansk familj, med en lalala-ande carpe diem-mamma och stereotypt patriarkalisk far, och den trasiga dottern som spårar ur i självdestruktivitet. Med bitvis stream of consciousness och övernyttjande av utropstecken som stilgrepp, koncentrerade inre perspektiv. Och ett tredje, en galen predikare, som vill få världen att se och höra. Samhällskritik, rätt kondenserat och tacksamt nog inte så långt, för det hade man inte pallat.
August 28, 2023
Maybe I missed something. This seems like a piece I would have written for a creative writing class in high school and thought myself edgy as all heck. You learn everything about the characters in the beginning chapters of the book and they don't seem to go anywhere from that. Everything that happens is inevitable and predictable. It gives the book the sense of being a repetitious wail. I was excited to start reading and relieved to stop. At least I was able to finish it.
September 24, 2017
Like Lidia Yuknavitch’s back-cover blurb, after reading OFA I feel something radical has happened to me. I couldn’t put it down for the last 100 pages. If you remember the early days of the Iraq War, if you grew up in suburbia, of if you know people who did, this book’s for you. Required reading for today’s activists.
August 14, 2019
The appearance of the word "hubby" is just about always a deal breaker for me, so it says a lot about this book that I loved and was blown away by it. This is just an absolutely dazzling feat of language. If Elfriede Jelinek were hilarious and made you want to sing along instead of drink the bleach, she'd be Kate Zambreno.
August 7, 2018
Honestly? This read like a college freshman high on adderall in her first critical thinking course, wrote it in one night. Riddled with cliche's and stereoptypes--look I hate Trump voters too but this was so shallow my eyes rolled back in my head more times than I can count. At least it was short.
November 28, 2018
I love reading a story that I’ve never heard quite “that way” before. Stylistically this is a beautiful book. The story is harsh and real. You pity the characters but don’t really like them much. Give this a try for something completely different. But in a good way.
February 11, 2019
Intense and vibrant. A marvelous and poetic look into forced femininity and mother-daughter relationships.
It was a hard pill to swallow, but ultimately a very rewarding and introspective experience.
It was a hard pill to swallow, but ultimately a very rewarding and introspective experience.
March 12, 2020
A novella about Mommy, a Catholic woman obsessed with traditional gender roles and repression; Maggie, the adult bipolar depressive daughter, disowned by Mommy, struggling with life; and Malachi, the prophet. A quick read with many flashes of recognition for me personally.
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