American Genius: A Comedy
by Lynne Tillman
List Price:
Our Price: $4.98
You Save: $10.02 (67%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.99 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Lynne TillmanEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-10-28
ISBN: 1933368446
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: Soft Skull Press
Book Reviews of American Genius: A Comedy
Book Review: "I heard my name . . ."
Summary: 5 Stars
AMERICAN GENIUS draws you in with the dexterity of Scheherezadem so don't plan on doing a lot of other things because hours will go by, and you'll still be there hanging on every word of the mysterious, yet utterly candid narrator, a woman who seems to be on a permanent vacation from the realities of her ordinary life, so that in a way, this is the updated, and very NY version of M. HULOT'S HOLIDAY. But is it a holiday entirely? Or has, perhaps, our narrator stepped outside the bonds of society and is being incarcerated in this strange place, like THE YELLOW WALLPAPER or THE SNAKE PIT? Women have long written about being clapped into one sort of prison or another, but rarely so enigmatically. I dare you to work it out, indeed part of the miracle of the book is seeing, with such inflected pleasure, just how long Tillman can keep up the balancing act of keeping you guessing. For in other ways the world the narrator finds herself in is like one of those artists' colonies one always hears about, where they bring you lunch to the door of your cottage, then tiptoe away so as not to disturb the "genius" within.
Or it could be any sort of other place of temporary lodging, like the inn in Chaucer. "Flee, flee, this sad hotel," Anne Sexton wrote, but in many ways this place suits our narrator, and the other guests or inmates or whatever they are afford her (and us) endless hours of amusement and speculation, just as they did M. Hulot, or Henry James. "I'm not trapped here," she keeps telling us, or maybe she's trying to reassure herself.
Each "guest" has a turn in the sun, each a little lesson in characterization, just the way they share their communal meals, or turn away from each other, or form little alliances that may or may not include our longsuffering artist with the sensitive skin. And yet by the end of the book we may decide that all that characterization aside, only a very few figures remain with us, strong trees on which the spiderwebs have entangled themselves. There is our narrator herself, bemused, sophisticated, and yet nursing childhood hurts and ancestral memories that mark her out as different even to herself--her world defined by how thin her skin is, how tender and how untouched. There's her brilliant father, not so much rapacious as passionately interested in everything except for that which his daughter holds dear. "It was my father who first made me conscious of the cherry on the back of my upper thigh." Thanks, Dad! And there's the Polish cosmetologist, superbly assured, highly skilled, European servility turned on its head to wear the mask of the master. She's great. Most strange of all, most touching, the real-life figure of "Manson Girl" Leslie Van Houten, imprisoned for real after umpteen appeals for parole, her memories of killing Sharon Tate and the rest fading away like spots on gold lame, her personhood turning her into a ghost, an avatar of humiliation, guilt, shame, and yet otherness, the otherness our heroine seems to see as a sort of shadow to her own self, the moon to her sun. Who knows what we might have been capable of if we felt as strongly, or as vacantly, as Leslie Van Houten?
The back of the book compares AMERICAN GENIUS to Tristram Shandy, Moby Dick, Gravity's Rainbow. I don't think so, but I can see what George Saunders and Matthew Sharpe jumped overboard in exactly those ways. Like these classic novels, AMERICAN GENIUS plays with time--slowing it down, making it jump hoops, negating it on the one hand while reifying it on the other--the way a prisoner does, marking the days scrawled in charcoal on the wall of his cave or cell. The long sentences with which our narrator marks time will resound in your head every time you try to put down this wonderfully achieved novel, and you'll be imitating Tillman next time you try to open your mouth and explain, just what it is that happened that made you so strange and so bereft.
United States Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in United States Books
Mirth of a Nation: The Best Contemporary Humorby Michael J. Rosen
Harper Paperbacks; Published: 2000-02-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.01
Price in other shops:
The Gifts of the Bodyby Rebecca Brown
Harper Perennial; Published: 1995-08-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.90
Price in other shops:
Love and Liesby Kimberla Lawson Roby
William Morrow; Published: 2007-01-30; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $4.96
Price in other shops:
Blues Dancing: A Novelby Diane Mckinney-Whetstone
HarperTorch; Published: 2005-03-29; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.93
Red, White & Liberal: How Left Is Right & Right Is Wrongby Alan Colmes
William Morrow Paperbacks; Published: 2004-10-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.01
Price in other shops:
Hunger Point: A Novelby Jillian Medoff
Harpercollins; Published: 1997-02; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $2.00
Price in other shops:
The Price of Bloodby Chuck Logan
Harpercollins; Published: 1997-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $25.99
Blue Hour: Poemsby Carolyn Forche
Harper Perennial; Published: 2004-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.93
Price in other shops:
Blue Suburbia: Almost a Memoirby Laurie Albanese
Harper Perennial; Published: 2004-03-16; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.01
Price in other shops:
The Kindness of Strangers: A Novelby Katrina Kittle
William Morrow; Published: 2006-01-31; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $3.35
Price in other shops:
Similar books summaries and other product reviews
This Is Not a Novelby David Markson
Counterpoint; Published: 2001-03-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.90
Price in other shops:
By Night in Chileby Roberto Bolaño, Roberto Bolano
New Directions; Published: 2003-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.15
Price in other shops:
The Chronology of Water: A Memoirby Lidia Yuknavitch
Hawthorne Books; Published: 2011-04-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.43
Price in other shops:
Mr. Foxby Helen Oyeyemi
Riverhead Hardcover; Published: 2011-09-29; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $13.80
Price in other shops:
The Brief and Frightening Reign of Philby George Saunders
Riverhead Trade; Published: 2005-09-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.89
Price in other shops:
Journey to the End of the Nightby Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Ralph Manheim
New Directions; Published: 2006-05-17; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.97
Price in other shops:
The Blood Oranges: A Novelby John Hawkes
New Directions; Published: 1972-04-17; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.96
Price in other shops:
The Flame Alphabetby Ben Marcus
Knopf; Published: 2012-01-17; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.00
Price in other shops:
Wittgenstein's Mistressby David Markson
Dalkey Archive Pr; Published: 2006-03-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.55
Price in other shops:
Someday This Will Be Funnyby Lynne Tillman
Red Lemonade; Published: 2011-04-22; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.38
Price in other shops: