“My book sat on the coffee table. I felt great. I felt frozen, completely frozen in my life. It would never stop being exactly like this. I was a great poet and I would always be alone. This was my curse. I took a couple of values and fell asleep on the big brown velvet couch that always felt like a casket. I always heard a little voice yell my name just before lost consciousness. I thought my death would be this way. I loved it.” – Eileen Myles
How did I end up with this book? My husband sent it to me a couple of days ago because he thought I might like it. Cute! Before I start telling you if I indeed did like it or not I will give you a little insight on Eileen Myles. I actually never heard of her before. This made me think how many awesome authors are still out there that I have not read or never will? Damn… I want more time to read.
Eileen Myles was born in 1949. She is an American writer and poet who has written a volumes of poetry, nonfiction, fiction and plays. She also won a plethora of awards – the 2010 Shelley Memorial Award, Lambda Award for lesbian fiction. She also received several Arts Writers Grants. In this autobiographical novel she describes how, as a young artist, she struggled with drugs, alcohol and sex. Reading through the first fifty pages or so I found that Myles has had a similar life growing up as Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe. Myles also describes in one of her short stories in this book how she met Allen Ginsberg. The cover of the book depicts Eileen Myles. The photographer is no other than Robert Mapplethorpe himself. (explained in her short narrative “Robert Mapplethorpe Picture” p.221)
What I loved about the book is that she writes in a candid style and very contemporary. Reading about her life is simply art. The way she wrote about her alcoholic father made me sad at points.
“Dad, the worst time ever with you was when Mary McClusky was over and you had your red lumberjack shirt on and you are lying down and you had those awful headaches which kept pounding and made you always look like you are going to cry, and you put your two fingers to your lips – were you talking on the phone lying down or were you watching a movie on teevee. You couldn’t talk and you kept making a that two-fingered gesture even though I felt like it wasn’t what you wanted I knelt down and kissed you in front of Mary. […] I think I just wanted to kiss you in front of Mary because you were lying there sick.”
In the book you learn a great deal about her being a lesbian and how she dealt with it and lived out her sex life in the 70s in New York City. I like that the book has many short autobiographical essays but I must say that I had trouble getting into it at first. The first quarter of the book is nothing but sex, drugs, writing, art and lesbianism – actually, the entire book is about sex, drugs, writing, art and lesbianism. Overall I have to say that I loved it. I am into the Beat Generation and I love most of the authors. I thought some of her sentences and paragraphs were insanely long but once I got into it I was fine. Sometimes I had the feeling she is writing a poem. It is really good writing and I have to say that after I finished this book I read a bunch of her poetry online. Oh, and thank you mon amour for the book. <3
I want to share this great interview of Eileen Myles about writing, New York City in the 70s and how poetry can help one to survive – if you would like to see.
Thank you for reading my blog.
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