We return you to another episode of My Long Back-log of Book Post... or how I should really get around to all the "Books read in April"!!
The Book of Dahlia by Elisa Albert was likely not a book I would have read had it not landed on Entertainment Weekly's top fiction books of 2008. That particular year-end list has been the proverbial gold mine of good finds for me over the years and while I tend to gravitate to books that make multiple "best ofs" there was something intriguing about Albert's debut novel (previously published a short story collection) which only earned an EW mention (to my best knowledge of the dozen or so lists that I typically check out).
The novel is a bit of hard sell (perhaps another reason why I had never heard of it before)... as I am not sure that many folks would find it appealing to read about a 20-something slacker who gets a brain tumor. Our protagonist, Dahlia (as you might have guessed) is hardly a charter that engenders much sympathy - stumbling through life with little purpose, sleeping with whatever man catches her fancy, spending most of her days smoking pot and having her credit card bills and a house near Venice Beach all paid for by Daddy... so when she gets a life-altering diagnosis... or more accurately, a death sentence... are we supposed to care? At least for me, the answer is "yes."
I found Dahlia to be one of the most refreshing characters I have stumbled onto in a long time. This is not some Lifetime movie of a young life taken too soon, but an unapologetic, f&ck you character that we rarely see in cancer melodramas... though I suspect is much often the case in real world, though probably not the degree of Dahlia. The chapters of the book are titled after a fictional cancer self-help book that Dahlia stumbles upon... it is one of those optimistic "You can beat this!"/12-step type books and given what I have already said, you know Dahlia is having none of that... as she dismantles each of the mantras along the way. Again, totally cynical... totally sarcastic... two traits that I particularly embrace, and again just not the road traveled in this type of story.
Now, it's not all humor and sarcasm ... there are dramatic, serious, philosophical moments along the way as readers hurdle towards the inevitable end. Here is passage I marked that is a good example of both...
There was no why, there was just the reality, which was that this was encoded in Dahlia's DNA from the moment of conception, like development of polycystic ovaries or acne or premature gray.... It had been lying in wait, like the startling shriek of a set alarm... She had been set spinning like a wobbly top toward this preordained destination of the worst kind of sick you can be, and her life had provided the ten million worm holes to bring her there. Asking "why" was why, goddamn it all to hell.
Good stuff huh?! I am not sure why this book didn't get more critical attention, which I keep a pretty good eye/ear on, but I am certainly glad that I stumbled onto it and will be certainly keeping those same eyes and ears out for Albert's next book.
Sounds intriguing - I agree - probably more realistic than a lot of books on this topic are. I'm going to add it to my TBR stack.
Joanna
Posted by: Joanna | Tuesday, June 02, 2009 at 11:07 AM