Reviews and Comments

3 1/2 pounds. This book weighs three and a half pounds.

[b:The Familiar, Volume 1: One Rainy Day in May|23012473|The Familiar, Volume 1 One Rainy Day in May|Mark Z. Danielewski|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1421172286s/23012473.jpg|42578928] is as much “written” as it is “designed.” It includes numerous illustrations (that relate to the story…how?…not sure), custom page layouts, heavy glossy paper, a ribbon bookmark, and color and typography to identify characters. There are even colored squiggles in the gutter. You’re all readers, right? You know what a “page gutter” is? (Huh. Gutter. A key event takes place in a street gutter.)

Most of the primary characters appear in separate chapters without interacting with one another. The main plotline follows a family: Xanther, Anwar (her stepfather), and Astair (her mother). The other characters – I don’t even know what to say about the other characters. After reading a few of their sections, I gave up and skipped to the Xanther/Anwar/Astair chapters. The chapters with those other characters were pretty bad. I lost any motivation to wade through slang, broken English (which I felt was denigrating and racist), gang jargon, and oodles and oodles of odd character names. Like Shnork.

There’s a prologue that has no tie-in to the rest of the book. About 2/3 of the way through is an interlude that hints at what’s going on (and is a likely adjunct to Anwar’s job as a software game developer).

Overall, this was strange. I may or may not read the next book in the series, but if I do it will only be to find out what happens to Xanther.

Bonus points to the author for mentioning the Post & Beam restaurant in the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza.

The library wanted this book back before I could finish it. My rating/review is based on finishing about 75% of it.

I thought “ghettoside” was a play on “homicide” – death caused by living in a ghetto (yeah, OK, I got the suffix wrong, “-cide” vs. “-side”). However, “ghettoside” is a place, as in “westside.”

Keep in mind that I read this book amidst almost daily news reports about portray trigger-happy police officers. The author, Jill Leovy, seems to be trying very hard to show that most cops are not racist. She focuses on Detective Tennelle, "that rare officer who actually lived the philosophy so long advanced by LAPD critics: he had chosen to live in the city he policed out of valor and a sense of responsibility.” This is one reason why cultural-socio-economic inequality is so difficult to overcome:

“To many officers, black residents of these ghettoside neighborhoods seemed so incomprehensibly perverse and hostile, so hell-bent on not making things better for themselves. And that same “community” bristled and postured in response. Yet beneath all this dysfunction, just as the cops yearned to be do-gooders who “helped people,” the “community” yearned for their help.”

Leovy describes how the community members take matters into their own hands when they feel they are not served by law enforcement officers or the criminal justice system; community justice frequently escalates into a cycle of retribution.

In addition to describing the murders, Leovy also provides a look at how ghettoside women are treated. Mothers seem to be granted some measure of respect, but girlfriends are temporary and disposable. One young man “expected blind obedience, and he mostly got it by merely implying the violence of which [his girlfriend] knew he was capable.” This made me think of how southern slave owners treated the enslaved--a terrible perpetuation of a terrible mindset.

I think I'm done with this...Kindle version shows me at 50% but then the book "starts over" with the sections reversed. They are identical in the second half, right?

I read Francesco's "Eyes" section first and found it to be brilliant. I preferred it to George's "Camera" section.

As a generalization, I don't care for fiction that anthropomorphizes characters. But I found myself rooting for little Flora. Born to a low caste, she has high aspirations.

Maybe she's heard the Jesus and Mary Chain song, Just Like Honey:

Listen to the girl
As she takes on half the world
Moving up and so alive
In her honey dripping beehive

I expected so much more from this novel. I won't be reading the rest of the series, so I guess I won’t find out about Lila's disappearance, which is disclosed in the prologue.

I was unable to sustain much interest in the many characters and clans that populate the book. Beyond the narrator, Elena, and her friend Lila, the book presents a mishmash of families, extended families, dalliances, feuds, and nicknames. Was it Antonio that was Elena’s boyfriend at one time? Or was it Alfonso? Does it really matter?

The publisher has a list of discussion questions for this book (www.europaeditions.com/archivio/libri/reading_group_guide_220.pdf). I'd like to address one of them:

It can be assumed that Elena’s voice is behind the title of the novel, referring to Lila as “her brilliant friend.” However, toward the end of the girls’ story [Chapter 57], it is Lila who praises Elena, and encourages her to be “my brilliant friend, the best of all, boys and girls." Is this dialogue between the two girls symbolic of Lila’s surrender? Are you surprised by Lila’s words?

I was very surprised that Lila urged Elena to be the “brilliant friend.” Up to this point, from Elena’s point of view, Lila is the one exhibiting “brilliance.” Lila effortlessly writes stories and works complex arithmetic problems; Lila bravely confronts the Solara boys; Lila designs shoes. I don’t think of the dialogue in Chapter 57 as representing Lila’s surrender; Lila is manipulative and knows just when and how to flatter Elena. In Chapter 36, Elena observes that Lila “threw things off balance just to see if she could put them back in some other way.” While I do believe Lila thinks of Elena as a true friend, the two are competitors even if they don’t perceive it.