Elle > Books: mess‎ (52)

“Mother must be dying.”
“Stop trying to cheer me up.”

“Mother must be dying.”
“Stop trying to cheer me up.”

“Finally, she looks at him intently and says, in a voice fraught with meaning, ‘which do you think you’d prefer, Rich? S or M?’”
“And?”
“He thought it was something to put on the hamburger.”

‘Okay, here I go.’ Iris takes a deep breath, ‘When Stacy and I. . . when she would be, doing . . . down there . . .’ She lowered her eyes towards her lap.
‘I got it.’
‘She was great at it, she broke my heart, but she was great at that . . . but I couldn’t finish, you know . . .’
‘I got it.’
‘. . . I couldn’t finish unless I imagined a boy was . . .’ Iris did this tiny thrust, with her tiny giggle, ‘ . . .you know . . .”
‘I know.’

“We were gender and sexually fluid before it was cool because we didn’t do it to be cool – we did it to be who we truly are.”

“Every time I say something bad about my family, it becomes more about where I come from than just regular stuff people go through with their parents.”

Though it was not there for shock value, the timing of it made it come across that way and, in my opinion, it was totally needless. It was not given adequate time and was rushed through, making it seem more like a convenient plot point for others' character development than a genuine tragedy.

“Did we have to do it?” she asked.
“No,” he answered, his voice breaking, tears falling into his beard to turn the flakes of ash to gray slush. “No, child. We didn’t.” He took a deep break then spoke again. “And making us complicit means we will never call them to account for the crime.”

Never be sorry for loving, Heloise. No matter who it is, no matter how it is done, no matter how the person you love receives it. Love is the greatest thing a person can do. Most go their entire lives knowing only ritual and obligation, mistaking it for love. But you have loved truly, as few can ever hope to do. This pain you are feeling is a triumph, Heloise.

"They don’t expect me to be—" I let out a breath.
"A human being?” Jamie blinks at me.
I feel my entire body getting hot. I feel like I’m being interrogated. I feel offended.

“Upsetting dad wouldn’t help anything. Giving him something extra to worry about when he has two little babies isn’t an option. I won’t make him unhappy just for the sake of needing someone on my side. I won’t be like mom.”

...split-personality, narcissistic, psychopathic mom.

"And everyone thinks she's hot but she doesn't care, because she has a secret... Guess what it is."
"Rape, incest," said Frankie in a bored tone. "Or oh my god, she's gay."
"Oh my god, she's gay," said Charlotte. "And then... she sees a gorgeous Iranian girl with oh my god, scars on her wrists."

"Why aren't we gay?"
"I know. But we're not. At least, I'm not. You seem a little gay to me."
"You know what would be really good? If one of us was gay and like, dying of secret lust for the other. And then there could be a discovery scene. And then insane sex."

This is how you treat your mother? she cried. And if I could have I would have broken the entire length of my life across her face, but instead I s

This is how you treat your mother? she cried. And if I could have I would have broken the entire length of my life across her face, but instead I screamed back, And this is how you treat your daughter?

Still, I keep coming back to the relative impunity with which the men in This Is How You Lose Her get to behave badly, and to the tone of the critical reception to these stories, which are not only stories but confessions, lamentations of wrongdoings. We have all been influenced by a culture where women are considered inferior to men and I would have loved to see what a writer of Diaz’s caliber might do if he allowed his character to step out of the vacuum he grew up in and that we all still live in. - Roxane Gay, How We All Lose