Book 40 - Effortless Breathless and Utterly Cool

Title: Chelsea Girls Author: Eileen Myles Genre: lesbian poetess memoir

THIS. BOOK.

This book is going on my re-read list FO SHO. In addition to being an emotional rollercoaster, this book got me writing again - no small feat, let me tell you. Something about Myles' flowing, raw prose unlocked something inside me. Memoirs give us permission to tell our own stories. It's not about whose experiences are more exciting, more strange, more anything - everyone's story is important because it's absolutely unique.

Anyways.

What can I even say about this book? It was unlike anything I've ever read before. Many of the sections are stream of consciousness ("a mug of cold water a steaming yellow mug of dark brown coffee a smoking cigarette"), akin to optical illusions in the way that you have to unfocus your brain and consider the whole instead of its parts to gain true understanding. Other sections are recounted in such sharp detail it hurts. Like Robin in the chapter titled "Robin":

She looks great in black shirts and she wears lipstick easily and looks dramatic...how it is that junkies talk, very ornate, piercing and hollow and obviously this girl was a prince. A dead one. She smelled of flowers, she smiled at me when she got up to leave. I'm so glad you're here she said intensely like I was the only soul in the room, or a soul who had a soul like hers.

Eileen Myles might just be one of the coolest people out there, and her book is unapologetically raw, hedonistic, sexy, and vibrant.

Rating: 🚬 🚬 🚬 🚬/5