Permission

by Saskia Vogel

ELLE ONES TO WATCH 2019 'Beautifully written, mysterious and compelling' JANET FITCH 'If Joan Didion had written about the BDSM community in LA it may have felt a bit like Permission' LIT HUB MUST READ BOOKS OF 2019 'Formidable in its elegance and fierce in its simplicity, Saskia Vogel's writing leaves the reader stunned and moved and wanting more. '
ANDREA SCRIMA, AUTHOR OF A LESSER DAY '[A] quietly transgressive tale of desire, love, loneliness, restraint and connection. The writing is fresh and minimal and the characters full of longing. A blistering debut for fans of Mary Gaitskill and A. M. Homes'
SARAH JANE ROBERTS 'Wonderful'
JENNIFER CROFT, MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE WINNING TRANSLATOR, 2018 'Permission excavates the uncertain landscape that lies just beneath the Hollywood dream factory we think we all know and against all odds finds something sacred there.'
RYAN RUBY, AUTHOR OF THE ZERO AND THE ONE *
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* A raw, fresh, haunting, emotionally and sexually honest literary debut. When Echo's father gets swept away by a freak current off the Los Angeles coast, she finds herself sinking into a complete state of paralysis. With no true friends and a troubled relationship with her mother, the failed young actress attempts to seek solace in the best way she by losing herself in the lives of strangers. When by chance Echo meets a dominatrix called Orly, it finally feels like she might have found someone who will be nurturing and treasure her for who she is. But Orly's fifty-something houseboy, Piggy, isn't quite ready to let someone else share the intimate relationship he's worked so hard to form with his mistress. Permission is a love story about people who are sick with dreams and expectations and turn to the erotic for comfort and cure. As they stumble through the landscape of desire, they are in a desperate search for the answer to that sacred how do I want to be loved?

Genres: Fiction, Queer, LGBT, Contemporary, Romance, Lesbian, BDSM

256 pages, Paperback

First published March 7, 2019

Reviews

[Andrew Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Echo is an aspiring actress and sometimes nude model at her local art centre. In truth, her acting career has stalled after a promising start. It seems she doesn’t show enough teeth when she smiles (only eight versus her lookalike rival’s dozen). She lives in a house on the coast outside Los Angeles, her parents having migrated to America from the Netherlands. Her mother and father seemed to have lived a turbulent marriage until, one day, her father dies. He’d sometimes climbed on the coastal cliffs and even shared this pastime with Echo, teaching her the routes and the holds, but one day he falls. His body is swallowed by the sea and Echo and her mother struggle to accept his disappearance from their lives.

Relationships don’t come easy to Echo, she visits a local musician for sex but other than sharing their bodies very little communication takes place. But then she meets a neighbour, Orla, and things change. Orla, it turns out, is a dominatrix by inclination and by profession. She shares her house with Piggy who is her lodger and her ‘slave’. Is it possible that Echo has found someone who can cure her of her rather awkward and unhappy existence?

Orla, Piggy and Echo strike up an uneasy alliance as Echo is introduced to BDSM culture. There’s a certain amount of detail provided describing the activities they participate in that might make some readers uncomfortable, but I believe this to be merely a somewhat titillating sideshow to the real story of the developing relationship between the two women. And as Echo continues to wrestle with the competing needs of developing some kind of life for herself whilst keeping an eye on her needy mother it’s not clear where events will eventually take her.

This is a book I never really settled to. I didn’t find Echo to be a particularly sympathetic lead character and I also failed to fully engage with the other players here. However, it does feel well written, in parts, and the structure of the piece and the vagueness of the prose did keep me off-guard, which felt in keeping with the somewhat unconventional narrative. It’s a book that made me think and it did introduce me to a culture that was previously alien to me, but it wasn’t a story I was impatient to return to.

My thanks to Little, Brown Book Group UK and NetGalley for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Comparisons between Permission and The Pisces are both understandable and reductive; understandable because sex-centric literary fiction set in Los Angeles is a pretty obvious comp, and reductive because sex and LA are pretty much where the similarities end. Where The Pisces excels, in my opinion, is in its refusal to sensationalize its explicit subject matter; Permission, on the other hand, never successfully avoids that trap.

Permission focuses on a young woman, Echo, who finds solace in the BDSM community after the sudden death of her father, when she befriends her neighbor Orly who happens to be a dominatrix. But what begins as a promising examination of sex as escapism from grief never really manages to take off. Echo, like her mythological namesake, is pretty much voiceless in this narrative, but in this case I don't think it was deliberate: this book is just one of those character studies that centers on a character who's drawn so anemically she may as well not exist at all. This goes for the other characters as well: there's an interesting passage where Echo reflects on the fact that she's been projecting onto Orly without fully realizing that she's a human being in her own right, but then nothing is really done with this revelation, and Orly too remains unknowable.

Rather than using sex and BDSM as a vehicle to explore Echo's loneliness (I think that was supposed to be the point), sex remains the focus in the shallow kind of way that I think could have been avoided if this story had a bit more depth and detail. I did enjoy Saskia Vogel's prose and there were undoubtedly moments of poignancy here, but on the whole I was underwhelmed.

Thank you to Netgalley and Coach House Books for the advanced copy provided in exchange for an honest review.

[Meike · Rating 3 out of 5]

In her debut novel, Saskia Vogel explores human longing: "The hard part is most people don't know how to ask for what they want. They don't think they're allowed", says Orly, the dominatrix our protagonist Echo befriends after her father's passing - and just like her mythological counterpart, Echo fights the curse of not being able to use her own voice. The nymphe Echo could only repeat the words most recently spoken by another person and thus couldn't communicate with her beloved Narcissus. In this story, Echo loses the orientation her father provided and now needs to find her own way. While her German-born mother who feels like she accomodated her life around that of her husband now struggles to re-adjust in an environment that still feels foreign to her (the story is set on the fringes of Hollywood in 1994), Echo dives into the world of Orly who teaches her about power over oneself and others.

This is a feminist book with zero cliches, but very explicit sex scenes feat. BDSM and fetishism, so if you're squeamish, give this one a pass (this stuff is harder than The Pisces). We meet Orly's house slave Piggy who finds freedom in submission, role-playing Hollywood producers, and an older man who lashes out against people with a sexual orientation he doesn't want to accept, but the whole story is held together by Echo's deep grief and her struggle to free her voice in order to be able to talk to her inner Narcissus, to her own desires. Echo's father drowned, and again and again, Echo hears the sea roaring, outside and inside herself - she knows that she can drown, too, but maybe she could also master the natural powers inside herself.

It shows that Vogel, who was born in L.A. and currently resides in Berlin, used to be a journalist reporting on "pornography and adult pleasure products" (says her website), because her narrative voice remains calm and even no matter the subject in the scenes she describes - this book is no "50 Shades of Grey" BS (I haven't read "50 Shades", and I don't feel like I should! :-)). "Permission", already published in 5 languages, will be made into a tv series, and I'm curious how that will turn out, because it seems like a challenging task - and I'm also curious what Vogel will write next, as this is an unusual feminist voice that can be added to an interesting range of emerging writers like Kristen Roupenian and Carmen Maria Machado.

[Jesse On Youtube · Rating 3 out of 5]

Permission is about Echo, a 25 year old aspiring actress reeling from the loss of her father. In his absence, her household has collapsed, leaving her alone with her grief as her mother develops depressive symptoms. When a mysterious, enigmatic dominatrix - Ori - moves in next door, Echo allows herself to be swept into Ori's world of BDSM, consent, sex, and power.

Initially, I fell hard for the lyrical, but stark writing Vogel uses to create a sweeping narrative. I was immediately drawn into Echo's pain, her relationship with her father, and the themes of loss/parental abandonment. There seemed to be promise of commentary surrounding topics like "daddy issues" that I was deeply excited for. I fell in love with entire paragraphs of highly quotable and insightful sentences, and by halfway through the novel, I was certain it would be 5 stars.

Permission's weakness is it promises to explore various topics - BDSM, parental loss, personal development - but halfway through the story, the exploration sort of falls apart. Entire chapters will be devoted to Echo's time with Ori during which she won't so much as think of her family or mention them in the narrative. Then the next chapter will focus solely on her family with no mention of her life as a budding dominatrix. I found the odd isolation of these topics, the lack of intersection and cohesion, to be jarring and unrealistic. It felt overly-focused and ultimately, none of these topics were explored to their full potential.

Gorgeous writing and a fascinating premise. I will also add that I have issues with the stereotypical portrayal of the books only latinx/hispanic character. It didn't necessarily effect my rating of the story, but it was cringeworthy and poor representation.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Saskia Vogel's Permission is an interesting debut about grief and BDSM. Not two topics you'd expect to find side by side in a novel, but it (mostly) works.

Echo, an actor without much work, returns to her hometown of LA after her father disappears in a freak accident. She stays with her mum, with whom she has a fractious relationship, and works as a model for life drawing classes. It is while she is back home that she meets a young woman who has just moved in down the street. This woman is Orly, a dominatrix, who works from home. Echo spends more and more time with Orly, getting embroiled in her life and that of her roommate, Piggy.

Permission is mostly a character study, and it is this aspect where the novel succeeds. I would have liked to learn a little more about Orly's backstory, but her relationship with Echo was beautifully written. I did feel that the story lost its way a bit towards the end which is why I knocked off half a star from my rating.

Thank you Netgalley and Little, Brown Book Group UK & Coach House Books for the advance copy, which was provided in exchange for an honest review.

[Livuoiqueiqualia]

Non so se ho capito davvero quello che ho letto (forse no), però mi è sembrato toccasse delle mie corde rispetto all’importanza di uscire dalla dinamica seduttiva che la nostra società imposta continuamente ed entrare nella dinamica dell’intimità. Il consenso è l’anticamera della reale intimità, della consapevolezza che quel corpo è una persona e quella persona ci importa -anche durasse un attimo-. Ci importa davvero degli altri?Oppure ci specchiamo negli altri?È una domanda che dovremmo farci e che mi sono chiesta leggendo.

[Josie · Rating 1 out of 5]

i really REALLY wanted to like this book. it's about the BDSM community in LA like come on that's already such an interesting topic!! but the characters were pretty empty and didn't act like people and i couldn't connect with a single one. beautiful writing on a line level but that can only get u so far

[Agnese · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting story about a young woman dealing with the grief and unjustified guilt of losing her father who finds some much-needed solace and support in the BDSM community. It's quite an unusual premise that immediately drew my attention to the book, however, I was somewhat underwhelmed by the story as a whole.

The novel mainly focuses on Echo, a young woman who returns to her childhood home to mourn the loss of her father. She has a strained relationship with her mother and, while searching for refuge from her grief and the complicated relationship with her mother, she becomes infatuated with a new neighbour, a woman named Orly who turns out to be a dominatrix and lives with her roommate that she refers to as Piggy.

It just so happened that, shortly after finishing this book, I went on to read Ottessa Moshegh's latest novel My Year of Rest and Relaxation in which a young woman is also trying to process her grief in a rather unusual way, so, inevitably, I ended up comparing these two novels. Both of them are mainly character studies and, while I think that Vogel succeeded at creating intriguing characters, in my opinion, the characterization in Permission paled by comparison to the unique and memorable narrative voice in My Year of Rest and Relaxation.

I wish that this book had been longer so that it could explore in more depth the fascinating relationship dynamics between these characters and also give some more insight into the backstories of some of the characters, particularly, Orly, who remained an enigma throughout the book.

[Blue · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gripping, beautifully written novella about a young woman grieving the sudden loss of her father and discovering the comfort and safety of control, pain, and release. The story follows Echo, who is a young, beautiful actress/model after the sudden loss of her father. Loss is a great word here, because he is literally lost, his body never found, confounding the grief Echo and her mother feel. Echo feel guilty of having been scared of the ocean and the rocks, having somehow caused he father's fall from the slippery rocks into the swallowing ocean, never to return him. Echo's mother also has come complex grief to deal with, as the relationship was permanently on the rocks (ha!) Stuck in a stagnant place in her career, lost in her love/sex life with men who don't seem to want what she wants or see her, dividing her time between her career flat and the house on the bluffs with her mother, Echo meets Orly, the dominatrix next door.

The story also follows Orly's housemate, a man Orly calls Piggy. From his failed marriage and shameful dismissal from a job to the suffering of the emergence of his desires and finally finding Orly, and building a sustainable, empowering friendship and partnership. How Piggy and Orly's relationship will change with Echo in the picture is the crux of the story.

BDSM is treated well and with full understanding in the novel, its everyday complications, its pleasures and dangers, its demands for study and learning and respect all well laid out and worked in to this delicate, smart story. The characters are real people who come at it from very different places and have different ways of learning it, experiencing it, and understanding it. In this sense, a fantastic primer.

Echo's relationships with the two men she has interactions with throughout the novel come at a good time with the MeToo movement. There is a blurring of want and need and desire and transaction. There is also a clear boundary, that, when crossed, is sharp and painful and unacceptable. The encounter with the father of a former (female) lover from high school is rather jarring, and Echo suffers from the shock for a while, just like the grief of her father's death continues to affect her every decision and feeling throughout the story.

Overall, I enjoyed Permission a lot. High recommended, especially for those who like trespassing beach property, surfing, smoking, and lost car keys.

Thanks to LibraryThing and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for my honest review. I enjoyed this novel immensely.

[Faroukh Naseem · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a tough one to review. I’ve not read any book dealing with BDSM before and this one was an eye opener on the topic. If you are not yet an adult, do not read this book/review.
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#theguywiththebookreview presents Permission by Saskia Vogel.
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What starts as a book primarily focused on our protagonist Echo, an actress who loses her father suddenly and is trying to cope with his absence and her mothers life changing situation turns into a a three pronged narrative between Echo, Orly (a dominatrix) and Piggy (an older man who is devoted to Orly)
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With this group of very interesting and unusual characters, Saskia Vogel churns a story of grief, longing and jealousy which explores the deepest and most personal psych of the characters.
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But at the heart of the book is Echo’s journey through a life suddenly filled with grief and her unusual choices to cope with it. Vogel succeeds in getting us into the minds of all three characters and her story telling is very transparent and straight forward.
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This book is not recommended for everyone, especially those who are not comfortable with adult content.
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Thank you @littlebrown for the copy!

[Laura Noizez_Reads · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mi aspettavo tutt’altra tipologia di libro. Volevo più introspezione, volevo entrare molto di più nella psicologia dei personaggi, invece questa è “solo” una storia e molto probabilmente l’autrice voleva solo raccontarla, ma io volevo altro.
È scritto molto bene, ma purtroppo non mi ha presa per niente.

[Billie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book speaks of pain, grief, sex, eroticism, power and the body with such complex clarity. It is metaphor that is real body horror, it is contradictory that allows for the confusion of people’s erotic desires.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

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Review originally posted here at Booked J. As always, a copy of this book was provided by the publisher or author in exchange for my honest review. This does not effect my opinion in any way.

My biggest complaint about Permission is frustratingly mundane: I wish it were longer. Which, in a way, speaks wonders about the fact that Permission is a damn good read. I'm always a bit skeptical when reading books that portray a BDSM lifestyle, mostly because of the inaccuracies that sprinkle themselves into things--ahem, I'm looking at you, Fifty.

That being said, I cannot tell you if Permission has an accurate view of things, only that it plays a part in the central story arcs. It goes without saying that, if this isn't something you fancy reading even moderate descriptions of, Permission won't be for you. This is an explicit read and very engrossing in its feminist nature--so if this sounds intriguing for you, I'm definitely recommending it.

At its core, however, Permission is a poignant tale of connection (primarily between Echo, Piggy and Orla) and personal growth. For Echo, this means exploring so much more of life and truly putting herself out there. While there were times when the characters and their relationships felt a bit stilled and not wholly there, I think that was less on writing quality and more of the length. Permission was a great read, but it definitely could have benefited from a longer release.

Permission is about more than just sexuality and the complexities of the human mind and longing. It is a different kind of coming-of-age story. It reminds us, too, that coming-of-age extends beyond just one age frame. Its most striking quality is the frank way in exploring many topics--including sexual pleasure, grief and finding ones voice. Vogel has this quality to her prose that makes everything hit the right spot.

As for the characters: of all we meet, I found Orla to be the most fascinating due to several quotable moments. I really enjoyed the presence she provided because it could be equally thought-provoking and tense.

Overall, I enjoyed Permission very much and had an easy time focusing on its narrative. Saskia Vogel did a wonderful job exploring such topics and breathing life into her characters.

[Lauren Fanella · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5⭐️

[Kazen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book - a beautiful combination and balance of plot, character, and setting with poetic language thrown in. It's a quietly queer character study with enough goings on to keep even me, a plotty reader, interested. More expansive, gushing thoughts in my April Wrap Up Part 3 video:

https://youtu.be/GqWM_bq4lmU

[Soubhi · Rating 4 out of 5]

After a bit of a slow start, I fell into this story of sexual exploration in the wake of intense loss.

Echo’s father is suddenly gone: an accident on slick rocks on the California coast. She and her mother are sent reeling through grief, neither sure how to deal with their own or the other’s.

When she meets a new neighbor, Echo feels an instant attraction. Learning she’s a dominatrix only steeps her interest.

In looking at BDS&M, this book has more to say about the nature of love and respect than I would have expected from such a short book. It’s not going to be for everyone, but if you are curious about that lifestyle, I think you’ll enjoy it.

[Sian Lile-Pastore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strange and interesting with great writing. Set in LA this is an odd mix of a book covering grief, relationships, queerness, bdsm and a little bit of life modelling. A great setting and a weird feeling overall - loved it.

[Basmaish · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting book and I don't think I've read anything like it.

This is a story about Echo who goes back home to live with her mother after she loses her father suddenly. They live in a neighborhood where neighbors don't really become friends or interact until Orly moves in and Echo finds herself mesmerized by her. Orly is a dominatrix who has a special relationship with her roommate Piggy and Echo finds herself swept into her life as she spends more time with her.

I found the experience of reading this book weird yet interesting. It looks at grief, expectations and BDSM. I have never read anything about the latter thus I was intrigued. I was invested in knowing about Orly's relationship with Echo, Piggy and her clients. Yet the entire time reading it I felt it was lacking depth. The book was too short to fully explore all the different aspects and maybe that was the intention but I was left wanting more. I have the same feeling with how the author handled grief. Echo's grief of losing her father and the relationship she currently has with her mother. As much as I loved her writing and how she portrayed it, I kept thinking there was something missing.

I am left wanting more out of this book and very intrigued and unlike a TV show where you can hope for a second season, I'll probably just have to sit with my feelings. And because of all the aforementioned this books gets a 3 starts but I would definitely recommend it if the synopsis intrigued you as much as it did me.

(I received a free e-book copy of this title from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.)

[lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

A story of a young woman grieving her father, and finding her confidence again in the world of BDSM sounded great, so I was delighted to receive an ARC from librarything.com but this book was so boring. It was what I used to make myself fall asleep for weeks because after two pages of reading my eyes would start to close.

But somehow I got through it. The writing wasn't bad, but the story was extremely muddled, and didn't seem to have much of a point. The pleasures derived from BDSM were inferred, but they weren't really explained, and the other strong emotions (grief, frustration) weren't written about in a way that made me believe that anyone was feeling them. The author seemed to tiptoe around the meat of the story, making everything a so-so description of what could have been happening.

I definitely won't be recommending that my library purchases this book since it's a waste of time, and it doesn't have the earnestness of a book like The Story of O (which Permission has been compared to) or the camp of Maestra. It's an OK book with OK writing and an OK story. Nothing too special.

[Jesika · Rating 1 out of 5]

Permission is a novel about grief, sexual exploration and power. I won't lie, this book didn't resonate with me in any way - I felt like the themes of abuse in the sex and film industries, the pain of long term grief, the standard sexual assault on women and the standard (and often damaging) norms of sexual behaviour weren't explored in the deeper and more meaningful ways that they could have been.

Perhaps this was the point, and perhaps I am just not the right audience for this novel. Either way, this was a quick read on a subject rarely discussed which is no bad thing - seeing books like this enter the mainstream can only be a good thing, I just wish it had been longer and more willing to explore it's own themes.

[Keeley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a beautifully written story. I really enjoyed how this book explores the non sexual side of BDSM and focuses on care, longing, and lust vs love. The story's main focus isn't about sex but about grief, and how we deal with it. I could very much relate to the main character, and was very drawn to the dominatrix character Orly. However, the novel is quite short which means we only get a limited insight into the character's relationships and their past. I would have loved to know more about Orly and how she became to be.

[Eleanor]

I didn't expect to like this as much as I did. It wasn’t the premise that made me wary (young LA woman grieving her father’s death enters a relationship with a local dominatrix)—I’m fascinated by the dynamics of sex work and BDSM, especially as it pertains to managing grief and loss. What put me on alert was the sense that this might be a disaster-woman novel (subgenre: sexy disaster), and some reports that the protagonist, Echo, was bland and inscrutable. Happily, for me, neither of these things were true. Echo is a disaster, but her father is dead—lost in a freak accident while rock-climbing over a dangerous stretch of beachside cliff—and she certainly has distinctive characteristics: as the child of a German-Dutch mother, her experience of life in LA is not unthinkingly accepting; she loves the sea, surfing, whales; her teenage career as a model and low-budget-film actress has shaped her in particular, not altogether healthy ways, and now (at twenty-four!) she’s aging out of her potential. But what I liked most about Permission was its very precise, beautifully rendered articulations of what trust in a domme/sub relationship actually means, the extent to which such a relationship can bring you to moments of almost mystic growth, development, epiphany. (Dominatrix Orly’s live-in house-slave, Piggy, is a fantastic secondary point of view character for this alone.) So commonly, books about contemporary sex make their characters weirdly emotionless; this doesn’t.

[Yusra · Rating 5 out of 5]

wonderfully written; echo’s character is one of crafted delicacy. I absolutely devoured the conversations regarding love and intimacy, alongside exploring the process of grief and loss. the inclusion of - and the conversations around - BDSM was taken thoughtfully and commented on distinctly by Vogel. I can’t wait to read what she writes next!

[Al · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really like how this started. It lost me somewhere around the middle. I think it would've been stronger without switching the perspectives, but I'm glad it stuck the landing.

[Josefin]

Gav upp efter en knapp tredjedel.. Blev helt sömnig av den här boken? Trist och intetsägande, varken ett intressant språk eller en intressant story. Hmm.

[Chanel Chapters]

DNF @50pages

Everything just felt flat to me and I was bored.

[Amit Verma · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is about confused and directionless longing finding its way to some good and some not so good hands.

First of all sexual preferences and details of main characters are difficult to understand and connect. There were so many terms that I had to google to understand.
Book has minute details about sexual encounters.
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But the main power of book is its writing. It is written in an engaging, innovative, refreshing and intelligent prose.
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Girl remembering her father in different emotional and psychological States and times gets sympathy out of the reader.
Countryside, roads and houses are detailed in expert manner and cover of the book showing a house and a car is definitely better than cover with abstract art.
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I liked the book but could not connect to main character Echo who has recently lost her father and has estranged relationship with her mother and tries to find pleasure at most unusual places.
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She finds a dominitrax ( new vocabulary for me) and her companion and their entangled paths crisscross many times.

Different books which has different look at ever changing shape of human desires and continuous efforts to meet them even at few expanses.

Thanks edelweiss plus snd publisher and author for review copy.

[Sara · Rating 1 out of 5]

Teos tavoittaa hyvin tietynlaisen melankolisen ajelehtimisen tunnelman, mutta tämä oli tylsä ja samantekevä eikä antanut oikein mitään. Erilaisten seksuaalisten mieltymysten kuvaaminen ilman tuomitsemista ja numeron tekemistä on tärkeää, mutta ei se ihan riitä kirjan sisällöksi minulle.

[Gina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Belated review but I felt this book deserved one. I can see why this book has many ratings on the lower side, but I found the writing intensely lyrical especially on the themes of isolation and loss, I connected with it immediately, sometimes reading passages multiple times because they were so beautifully written. The characters are somewhat vapid and ill-defined, and the plot meanders (it gives me a strong sense of one of those oppressively warm evenings after a day at the beach, spaced out and formless and hazy) but this makes the fractured, fragmented, refracted sense of Echo's grief all the more poignant. A tender novel about vulnerability, loss, control.

Anyway here's some lines I underlined:

On being queer and hearing men talk about women in a similar way that you feel about women but not having the words to express that yet:
"She was a woman in control, generous with her body, the spectacle of it, the idea of it in dialogue with other bodies, mind. I imagined she didn't think about sex in terms of men or women, but grace, strength, and beauty. I wanted to be part of this. I don't think this is what my father wanted. His desire was clear and common. Mine had a syntax I had yet to discover."

"Maybe this night would be transformative. Maybe it would be weird or boring. Whatever it would be, it would be with her and being with her felt urgent."

"𝑫𝒆𝒂𝒓: cold and slithering with sarcasm. I hadn't known a term of endearment could be weaponized until then."

"It hurt to hear that she had locked herself into an idea of being."

[Isabel Marqués · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vogel has written a 250-page epic about growing up to grow in, in your own skin, flesh and bone, towards an understanding of life as constantly shattering into irretrievable pieces and home as losing its mythical, essential meaning in favor or a provisional, dynamic notion that suggest discomfort, pain but also an regenerative sense of adventure. Announced as a piece of unconventional erotica written after the me too movement, Permission's brilliance lies on its mirror structure, projecting the politics of domination practices against, this is, constantly absorbing, a young woman's quest for meaning and origins in the landscape and the family. Vogel is extremely subtle when it comes to relate opposite terms as in a constant dialogue LA's peripheral wilderness vs. its pastiche film fantasy, the organic character of a community vs. a gregarious life inspired by nature and especially, the influence of the father vs. that of the mother. Apart from the protagonist herself, the novel is full of other echoes, such as the very representation of the dance of punishment, submission and liberation, between two people who abandon their sexual signs to become simply bodies, loving each other like waves shattering against the rocks.