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Idiophone
"This book, about ballet and beauty, philosophy and family, reinforces Amy Fusselman's status as one of our best interrogators of how we live now." --Dave Eggers
Leaping from ballet to quilt making, from The Nutcracker to an Annie-B Parson interview, Idiophone is a strikingly original meditation on risk-taking and provocation in art and a unabashedly honest, funny, and intimate consideration of art-making in the context of motherhood, and motherhood in the context of addiction.
Amy Fusselman's compact, beautifully digressive essay feels both surprising and effortless, fueled by broad-ranging curiosity, and, fundamentally, joy.
"Fusselman bounds with great dexterity from theme to theme--covering topics including addiction, motherhood, gender, and art--until she has transformed the traditional essay into something far wilder and more alive." --Publishers Weekly, starred review
"No one acrobats between beauty, confession, rueful humor, and deep insight with such amazing trapeze-y ease as Amy Fusselman." --John Hodgman
Leaping from ballet to quilt making, from The Nutcracker to an Annie-B Parson interview, Idiophone is a strikingly original meditation on risk-taking and provocation in art and a unabashedly honest, funny, and intimate consideration of art-making in the context of motherhood, and motherhood in the context of addiction.
Amy Fusselman's compact, beautifully digressive essay feels both surprising and effortless, fueled by broad-ranging curiosity, and, fundamentally, joy.
"Fusselman bounds with great dexterity from theme to theme--covering topics including addiction, motherhood, gender, and art--until she has transformed the traditional essay into something far wilder and more alive." --Publishers Weekly, starred review
"No one acrobats between beauty, confession, rueful humor, and deep insight with such amazing trapeze-y ease as Amy Fusselman." --John Hodgman
132 pages, Paperback
Published July 3, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 48 reviews
November 7, 2019
Singular essay in the form of a poem (left justified, line breaks, not rhyming, numbered sections). Threads about The Nutcracker, mother in memory care, motherhood, slit gongs, cowbells, Tchaikovsky, boxing, ETA Hoffmann's ailments, Talking Heads, quilting, mice. Maintains casual yet not conversational tone/register throughout. Sorta funny, definitely unpredictable, enjoyable, light (like falling snow, balletic footfalls, enlightenment). Reminded me at times of the very aerated/not at all dense cousin of Ducks, Newburyport if this one's narrator moved from Ohio to Manhattan where she somehow raised a family with three kids without once complaining about money. A few "white male writer" assertions undermined things for me since their overt race/gender-ism made me wonder about class (the holy ghost of the blessed trinity -- privilege so often apparent yet unacknowledged in artsy texts by well-off white women). I should note that the author ran a weird little lit site a long time ago and I once won a photo contest she ran. The victory lifted my spirits at the time (2003?) but hasn't influenced the integrity of these impressions. Anyway, definitely recommended for readers interested in rangy, associative, often amusing, formally individuated/unconventional, slim, surprisingly stable, contemporary essay novel poems. Worth it alone for learning what David Byrne keeps in his apartment year-round.
October 24, 2019
The most creative and poetic essay I've read in a while, and one that captures the quiet desperation of the times we live in (and what a whole fuckload of fun but also tenderly melancholic and long fermented in hardship, empathy, meditation). Ultimately for me it's about celebration. It's about joy and hope, maybe delusional (maybe not); one where we break out of this world i.e. this narrative and into one where an essay like this is possible. Where mice are dancing and getting gay married and cockroaches are riding gall bladder cars. It's not escapism, it's an acknowledgment of everything we can and cannot see, and opting to create another more real reality based on fantasy. Why not? I could go on and on analyzing the many interwoven themes that lace this amazing piece, but it's only 100 pages and you're already dying to read it
February 14, 2021
No esperaba mucho de este libro pero me gustó, es interesante. Me gusta este género que creo que se está poniendo de moda, que mezcla lo autobiográfico con ensayo y con muchas citas de fuentes en principio casi siempre muy dispares, con algo de mezcla entre "lo alto y lo bajo", o la alta cultura y la cultura popular. Me parece una vuelta mucho más interesante al giro autobiográfico que las novelas de lo que se entiende como "literatura del yo". Me hizo pensar, por ejemplo, en Una guía sobre el arte de perderse de Solnit, o en Somos luces abismales de Sanin (creo, porque sólo lo hojeé, en su caso me irrita cómo escribe directamente) o incluso, salvando las distancias (enormes), Carson en toda su obra. En fin, en Idiófono Amy Fusselman aprovecha las "libertades" de este género para hablar de El cascanueces, de su relación con su madre, de su alcoholismo, de su relación con sus hijos, de las dificultades para escribir, del lugar de las mujeres, y particularmente las mujeres escritoras. Creo (hoy estoy prejuiciosa) que si alguna vez se le diera por leer algo no escrito en los EEUU, flashearía.
January 1, 2020
I've been quite enamored of Amy Fusselman in the past, but this one was just too odd for me. It whips back and forth surreally between the Nutcracker, bugs driving cars on holiday, the agonies and ecstacies of mothering and being mothered, old musicians, new choreographers, and more—plus the whole thing is written entirely in verse. It's just... a lot, and I wasn't able to enjoy it very much. I'm sorry, Amy!!
April 14, 2018
Toward the end of Fusselman's luminous new lyric essay creation, Idiophone, she writes: "To see it all at once like in a mirror, to be in one world and to multiply..." and that comes pretty close to the overall mood of this weird, playful, and sometimes gloomy book. It feels sharply focused and almost suffocating at times while there are some moments that feel scattershot and a little off the rails--like the narrator is trying to show you the whole world.
Going from the interior worlds of The Nutcracker to her relationship with her mom, Fusselman (one of my favorite people in the book world I have to admit) investigates the various stagings and preconceptions of art (including quilting!) and being human. A refreshingly wild and ambitious essay that looks like an epic poem but reads like a speeding train set driven by mice, Idiophone is some strange magic.
Going from the interior worlds of The Nutcracker to her relationship with her mom, Fusselman (one of my favorite people in the book world I have to admit) investigates the various stagings and preconceptions of art (including quilting!) and being human. A refreshingly wild and ambitious essay that looks like an epic poem but reads like a speeding train set driven by mice, Idiophone is some strange magic.
October 17, 2018
I don't even know how to summarize my thoughts about this book other than it's an amazing poetic essay about mothers, daughters, art, movement, banality, booze, mice, and the Nutcracker. I'll be digesting this for a while.
October 15, 2020
"This is a problem:
your writing is not short stories,
it is not a novel
it is nonfiction but it is not the kind of nonfiction we are used to,
it doesnt sound like poetry.
Just put it in a box, would you?
Just put it in a box so we can contain it?"
Fusselman's book length lyric essay defies easy categorization. It's about the origin of the Nutcracker ballet, being a mother and daughter, and an alcoholic. It's a dazzling, spinning whirl among these topics.
your writing is not short stories,
it is not a novel
it is nonfiction but it is not the kind of nonfiction we are used to,
it doesnt sound like poetry.
Just put it in a box, would you?
Just put it in a box so we can contain it?"
Fusselman's book length lyric essay defies easy categorization. It's about the origin of the Nutcracker ballet, being a mother and daughter, and an alcoholic. It's a dazzling, spinning whirl among these topics.
May 17, 2019
I enjoy this essay very much!
It is playful and strange and loving.
It is about freeing ourselves from expectations, about multivalence. Boundaries. The vastness and complexity of the world. How there is so much of it that we can’t hold it in our experience as one. So different worlds we experience.
And Fusselman‘s mother, mice, dance, resonating bodies.
It is playful and strange and loving.
It is about freeing ourselves from expectations, about multivalence. Boundaries. The vastness and complexity of the world. How there is so much of it that we can’t hold it in our experience as one. So different worlds we experience.
And Fusselman‘s mother, mice, dance, resonating bodies.
March 20, 2021
Un libro sencillo pero interesante. Poesía pura.
July 26, 2019
Like some kind of sugar-plum fairy, this collection rapidly flits around between a variety of topics (the creative process/inspiration, mother-daughter relationships) and always manages to sprinkle some delightful insights on each page. Graceful, sugary, and utterly enjoyable. Also I think this made me like The Nutcracker?
January 8, 2019
One of the funniest, smartest, and most compassionate books I’ve read in a long time.
April 19, 2021
Libro extraño, particular, diferente. Que no puedo decir si es una novela, ensayo, notas sobre temas culturales o todo eso entremezclado. La cuestión es que habla de las obras culturales construidas en torno a El cascanueces y alrededor de ese hilo argumental va hablando de su vida y otro tantos temas sin mucha relación más que la que ella es capaz de construir.
March 27, 2021
No me gustó tanto como sus otras obras, pero también porque el estilo es raro, ella misma dice que no es no ficción, no es poesía. Que se yo. Igual está bien, es algo que releeria.
December 21, 2025
La riqueza es una cuestión de percepción, igual que la suerte.
Amy Fusselman crea mundos y me lleva de paseo. Este libro es inclasificable, temo olvidarlo demasiado pronto.
Amy Fusselman crea mundos y me lleva de paseo. Este libro es inclasificable, temo olvidarlo demasiado pronto.
September 17, 2022
"9
Mi hijo de trece años y yo tomamos juntos una clase de boxeo.
Pasan música, y eso nos gusta.
Música muy fuerte.
El instructor tiene que gritar para dar las indicaciones, y aún así, no siempre logramos escucharlo.
Tenemos que mirar a otras personas de la clase para entender que está pasando.
Pero el instructor nunca baja la música.
Así de importante es.
Digamos que las letras no son precisamente feministas.
Hay un puñado de mujeres en la clase.
Ya lo hemos escuchado todo;
nos concentramos en la tarea.
Mucho se ha especulado sobre la conexión entre el boxeo y la danza.
Pienso en eso cuando el instructor habla del movimiento de los pies.
Bailamos con los guantes puestos.
Soy la más vieja de la clase; mi hijo es el más joven.
Cuando hace falta formamos pareja.
Chocamos los guantes después de hacer lagartijas.
Tiramos golpes y ganchos desde los dos lados de la bolsa.
Sobre nosotros se cierne un enorme mural de Joe Louis.
Dicen que Joe Louis dijo: "No existe algo así como un boxeador nato.
Un bailarín nato tiene que practicar mucho. Un pintor nato tiene que pintar todo el tiempo.
Hasta un tonto nato tiene que trabajar duro".
En esa clase trabajamos duro, sí señor.
Louis también dijo: "hacen falta muchos tipos diferentes de personas para hacer un mundo mejor".
Creo que había dado con algo interesante."
Mi hijo de trece años y yo tomamos juntos una clase de boxeo.
Pasan música, y eso nos gusta.
Música muy fuerte.
El instructor tiene que gritar para dar las indicaciones, y aún así, no siempre logramos escucharlo.
Tenemos que mirar a otras personas de la clase para entender que está pasando.
Pero el instructor nunca baja la música.
Así de importante es.
Digamos que las letras no son precisamente feministas.
Hay un puñado de mujeres en la clase.
Ya lo hemos escuchado todo;
nos concentramos en la tarea.
Mucho se ha especulado sobre la conexión entre el boxeo y la danza.
Pienso en eso cuando el instructor habla del movimiento de los pies.
Bailamos con los guantes puestos.
Soy la más vieja de la clase; mi hijo es el más joven.
Cuando hace falta formamos pareja.
Chocamos los guantes después de hacer lagartijas.
Tiramos golpes y ganchos desde los dos lados de la bolsa.
Sobre nosotros se cierne un enorme mural de Joe Louis.
Dicen que Joe Louis dijo: "No existe algo así como un boxeador nato.
Un bailarín nato tiene que practicar mucho. Un pintor nato tiene que pintar todo el tiempo.
Hasta un tonto nato tiene que trabajar duro".
En esa clase trabajamos duro, sí señor.
Louis también dijo: "hacen falta muchos tipos diferentes de personas para hacer un mundo mejor".
Creo que había dado con algo interesante."
June 14, 2018
Read the full review here: http://pageandplate.com/idiophone
Thanks to Coffee House Press for providing this book for a review.
If you're the kind of person who walks through a modern art museum so mystified that you kind of start to giggle but in a panicky way, turn back now. This is not the book for you. BUT, on the other hand, if being made to think in delightful and weird ways about mundane topics, hey buddy, welcome to your new favorite long-form essay.
Thanks to Coffee House Press for providing this book for a review.
If you're the kind of person who walks through a modern art museum so mystified that you kind of start to giggle but in a panicky way, turn back now. This is not the book for you. BUT, on the other hand, if being made to think in delightful and weird ways about mundane topics, hey buddy, welcome to your new favorite long-form essay.
June 14, 2024
Belleza de libro. Otro acierto de Chaieditora.
No conocía a esta autora y me sorprendió gratamente.
Este libro puede ser catalogado como autoficción, pero nos quedamos cortos. Como dijo Mauricio Wacquez, "los géneros literarios son un invento de los editores.
En esta breve joyita literaria los límites entre prosa, verso, narración, ensayo, poesía, ficción, realidad se diluyen. Texto híbrido; texto queer.
Una delicia como la escritura enlaza temas y referentes, con belleza, inteligencia, lucidez: el Cascanueces, la relación con la madre, el alcoholismo, la maternidad, el trabajo escritural, las relaciones intertextuales y metaliterarias, desde una mirada feminista integradora, inclusiva.
Un libro encantador que me cautivó desde la primera oración. Se puede leer de un tirón, pero se disfruta leerlo con calma, contemplando detenidamente su textura, su ritmo, su tono.
Lectura felizmente placentera.
No conocía a esta autora y me sorprendió gratamente.
Este libro puede ser catalogado como autoficción, pero nos quedamos cortos. Como dijo Mauricio Wacquez, "los géneros literarios son un invento de los editores.
En esta breve joyita literaria los límites entre prosa, verso, narración, ensayo, poesía, ficción, realidad se diluyen. Texto híbrido; texto queer.
Una delicia como la escritura enlaza temas y referentes, con belleza, inteligencia, lucidez: el Cascanueces, la relación con la madre, el alcoholismo, la maternidad, el trabajo escritural, las relaciones intertextuales y metaliterarias, desde una mirada feminista integradora, inclusiva.
Un libro encantador que me cautivó desde la primera oración. Se puede leer de un tirón, pero se disfruta leerlo con calma, contemplando detenidamente su textura, su ritmo, su tono.
Lectura felizmente placentera.
October 10, 2018
If we could write down everything we were thinking in any moment, the 6, 12, or 43 trains of thought that were chugging through and crossing in the foreground, background and middle ground, as well as what were on side tracks waiting for other trains to finish passing, we would realize how long 2 or 5 of them hang around, and how our thinking is not really linear but more of walkabout through the outback of our mind, and how train doors open with pithy phrases and words and then close before we see everything, and how often the same doors open back up so we think more about them, progressing our thoughts or further confounding our bewilderment, while some doors never open and we wonder about that, which sends another train shooting down the tracks, and if we strung them all together then we would have the wonder of this book.
July 11, 2018
It is shocking to read something so profoundly and uniquely personal, and see yourself in it. That's how I was shocked by Amy Fusselman's Idiophone. It's an essay about the experience of Motherhood and Daughterhood, and the separate Personhood that neither of those states can infringe upon. Fusselman's is the kind of deeply incisive, brutally honest thinking about one's life and one's place in the world that was always rare, but now is additionally so precious in a world of Introspection via Instagram.
I don't want to read or write about the fight between drinking and not drinking.
I want to read about what people do after they stop fighting that fight.
- Idiophone, pg 4
I don't want to read or write about the fight between drinking and not drinking.
I want to read about what people do after they stop fighting that fight.
- Idiophone, pg 4
February 3, 2021
I learned a new word with the title of this book. An idiophone is "an instrument the whole of which vibrates to produce a sound when struck, shaken, or scraped, such as a bell, gong, or rattle." That's just what this book is, textual fragments, arranged on the page like poetry, that jostle and create a surprisingly cohesive sound. Here the ingredients are The Nutcracker, a dying mother, flying taxi cabs, alcoholic blackouts, parenting, and, of course, writing. Fusselman has an amazing way of making seemingly random digressions loop back and affirm each other, to jostle them into place. The sound is close to glorious.
March 20, 2021
Like how a mother creates a daughter or the artist creates work (be it a hybrid lyric essay or a experimental quilt) there are mirrors and shows within the show. There is the Nutcracker and the Talking Heads, there are resonant instruments making mirrored noises and echos of people and art in one another. There are frames, there are lyrics, there is the personal, there is the political, and there is artwork mediating in different and interesting ways between it all. This feels like consciousness, a very organized stream of such, the tone is meditative, honest, frank, and wandering between different threads makes this very expansive and possible feeling
October 26, 2018
I wasn't overly taken with Fusselman's essay in verse, but I do think it has a lot to recommend it, including the raw ways Fusselman talks about her relationship with alcohol and her mother and how that affects her relationship with her own kids. There are a few severely pat declarations made here or there that do negatively alter my view of the book, but it's a swift read that operates on many different levels at once, so I can admire it for that.
February 24, 2019
This slender book was a delight -- hurray for the "new arrivals" display at the library, or I never would've known about it. I'd discovered another of hers, The Pharmacist's Mate, at Dave Eggers' pirate -store-slash-writing-workshop-venue in San Francisco about 17 years ago, and didn't remember much about it except that at the time I'd felt like I'd discovered a well-kept secret. I love her smart, quirky, wandering mind and the way she dances with words.
June 6, 2018
I’ve never seen essay done this way. Using form from poetry without writing poetry essays, using the energy of stream of consciousness fiction while still contemplating essay topics, this is just so innovative and fresh for something I don’t expect to see in ovation and freshness in. I decided to read it straight through because I loved flow and didn’t want to interrupt that.
April 6, 2021
Goodreads te pide una calificación y apreté 4 por poner un número. Uno de los libros mas raros y difíciles de calificar. Es loco, es delirante, es original, es distinto, es un poema, es un relato, es fantástico, es real?
No se, me da placer aprender a leer cosas diferentes.
Ahora tengo que ir a ver The Nutcracker 😬
No se, me da placer aprender a leer cosas diferentes.
Ahora tengo que ir a ver The Nutcracker 😬
April 30, 2021
Quit halfway. Too much repetition, permutation and the like. Plus her voice sounds like other essay voices, only slightly more vapid and mild, like a reused bag of tea that went cold. Or maybe not in the mood and expected something sharper. The Muckracker parts.that open the book, for instance, are quite uninteresting.
February 14, 2022
En cierto momento del libro, Amy Fusselman, se refiere a su escritura a algo así como inclasificable entre la ficción y la no ficción. Este libro se queda a mitad de camino, nada lo empuja hacia adelante, no tiene alguna conexión que lo haga relativamente ingenioso. No es inclasificable, es aburrido e insustancial.
March 25, 2023
I really didn't know what to expect when I picked this up, but I found myself really getting wrapped up in Fusselman's experimental non-fiction. It's associative, but not random, and I enjoyed watching the connections and thru-lines evolve throughout the text. I'll keep my comments here vague, because I think this is best read in one sitting, with a hot beverage and zero expectations. :)
September 24, 2019
Fantastic and fantastical, the author makes intimate connections between the real and the metaphorical, the concrete and the conceptual in her life, between what is, and what she imagines there to be. An interesting, difficult to categorize, poetic, memoir-leaning text.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 48 reviews