Sparkle Life is not very good.
From Publishers Weekly: The three 30-something stars of this ambitious (?) debut are not friends but New York film world acquaintances at one degree of separation. Joy and Sara see the same psychiatrist, who turns out to be Liv's uncle. Liv is dating Sara's brother who cheats on her with Joy. And not far into the book well-halfway+ , all three seal their romantic fates at the same movie premier party. (Liv? I guess the breakup happens as of that night.) //update 24 hrs late, having finished the book why is pub so set on describing it as story of 3 women. isn't it as much about linus for ex? and don't sara and joy end up seeming like backdrop to story of Liz and her family? anyway as story it was ok. just nothing lovely or ...//
reminds me of some other galley that was readable enough for the story of the characters but not especially good in any way and so I wanted it out of the house (put on free shelf or by powells I guess, it's not in box anymore, don't remember what it was, maybe it was not even one specific novel. 4/23: I think it was The Good Life by Jay McInerney. eh-). not like Morning Heights [Morningside Heights : A Novel by Cheryl Mendelson, RH 2003] which, while domestic ~ soapoperaish driven, worth keeping for some funny sentences and few dear moments: small child telling mother, I'm falling in love with you.
so why is Other Press publishing this?
rather American. not rather French. the psychiatrist is of the self-reflecting look-at-me-the-therapist-who- type.
brought home together with another without further investigation once seen Other Press - at least interesting if not good.
and the another was. The Woman in the Row Behind. not great. French with that strangeness so strange of the other novel I read relatively recently but did not like enough to buy - also a publisher of my interest- Melville House (Moby Lives blog now podcast) - reddish cover with scriptish on it - a woman's name like Justine as title? or something like 'no promise' but not that - and the main character with same name as the author and same circumstance of being daughter to a swellknown philosopher and working in publishing. which is how I can identify it, bcs is the philosoph Bernard Levy (same Henri Levy wrote the Amer Vertigo with G Keillor's rvw of wh I sided?) - so - --
-- here we go - Nothing Serious by Justine Levy.
PWeekly: The daughter of Bernard-Henri Lévy, the author evokes the misery of heartache and unsentimentally conveys her protagonist's hollow sense of desolation in stylized, fragmentary prose... The daughter of Bernard-Henri Lévy, the author (The Rendezvous) evokes the misery of heartache and unsentimentally conveys her protagonist's hollow sense of desolation in stylized, fragmentary prose. ..brand of French fatalism. is that what it is? brand of French something- but it's not fatalism in Woman in Row when says 'dreams nextdoor' meaning of sleeping husband beside her. not so odd a description itself ~ the oddness maybe is in its lack of preparation, connection to any other description around it. this is translation too French in translation. Platform - Michel Houllebecq ~ had the same quality. understandable partly but feels like you cannot encounter it as unforeign. French to me. (unlike Greek. or Italian, I feel nothing like this in Italian. or German of course.) now Proust, Proust did not have this weirdness. I think it may be the current French-ness ~modern... (Lacan par ex). In case Of Proust, K Scott Moncrieff and Kilmartin may play a large part in making the lovely English book. but yes it's the contemporary french thing. so are there minds so different strange?