If you’re new, you can catch up here.
A brief confession, to start: I had really, honestly planned on not getting more than one chunk of text ahead of our official reading, because I think it helps to discuss portions of a book FOR THEMSELVES, without knowledge of what sort of heavy lifting they may be doing for the narrative as a whole, but when I got to the end of Chapter 12, I didn’t even think about it, I just kept going until I was done, because it was impossible to just leave Miri where she she was. So, anyway, I apologize for this violation of your trust. This is a phenomenal novel.
What do we want to talk about, today? Strength and weakness, I think. Roxane is so interested in the strength and weakness of her characters, and how they can so easily co-exist in the same person (I’m thinking of her father, and the weird sort of MONUMENT to strength he creates for himself, but also of Miri and Lorraine.)
And Michael! Michael is such a cipher. I never, ever feel like I really get a lock on Michael. I appreciate how complicated their relationship is, and how sometimes he’s just the worst kind of shit, and how sometimes I have no idea how he deals with Miri at ALL.
But this is all kind of hand-waving, honestly, because this portion of the book is also where we get one of the most visceral and physical and horrifying depictions of rape that I have ever seen in literature (no, I take that back, it is absolutely the single most such creation) and it suddenly threw into relief how cheap and aggravating it is when rape is used in movies and TV shows to make things edgy, or to give a man a reason to WREAK VENGEANCE, because what that chapter accomplishes in this novel is so vital and awful and powerful that, well, it makes everything else look like exploitative garbage, at least today, and probably for the rest of this week, and maybe for a long time after that.
Okay! What, um, what did you think about this part of the novel?
(And we’ll meet back to discuss through the end of Ch. 24 on August 3rd.)
Tags: an untamed state book club, books, roxane gay
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Nicole, like you, I was unable to stop at Chapter 12 and just…kept going. Can you or someone who’s stopped at 12 give me a reminder of where the plot stops at this point? I don’t want to get ahead of anything.
I kept going, but Chapter 12 ends with the story of Michael’s first trip to Haiti and the fight they have when they get back.
Yeah, I plowed through and finished this as well — no idea what’s happening at our stopping point.
Michael is kind of a shit, isn’t he?
Also every other novel that takes the idea “x experience changed my protagonist forever” as a foundational theme now has to live up to this novel, which actually made me believe that experiences change people. As opposed to a lot of books where big shit happens but the person is still sort of the same person on the other end, which is aggravating.
I… don’t think he’s a shit? I think he reacts less than ideally, but who knows how to deal with that stuff. Being super rich and living in a compound in an extremely poor country is problematic. It is really awful to have your fabulous life ruined because terrible things happen to your wife (not as awful as it is for her obviously). I think he comes through OK in the end.
I agree, I don’t think he’s a shit much more than any of us are sometimes. He’s oblivious a lot of time, and his learning to become less oblivious is one of the more interesting struggles in the book.
I wasn’t planning on reading along, but I picked this up yesterday on my way home from work and by the time I got off the subway at my stop I was just riveted and destroyed. I probably looked insane reading it on the subway because the violence in those first few pages is so visceral/immersive.
I think the thing that really got me was the juxtaposition of rape with Miri and Michael’s love life, which is not really portrayed sweetly or romantically, but is still something completely different because you experience both through Miri.
I am very interested in the flashbacks that are provided to describe their life – how they met, their romance, and so on. I don’t know where those have gotten to by Ch 12 so I won’t give specific examples – but what you said about how they are in Miri’s point of view I think is really important. I found a lot of those scenes grating. She seemed so annoying, and it all seemed too daydreamy and unrealistic, like it was trying to be the plot of a movie. But perhaps she sees it that way, and we’re just seeing it through her eyes? That’s how I made my peace with those scenes.
Yeah, I figured she was looking back and nostalgically remembering that easier happier time.
MIRI’S DAD. Holy FUCK. In the parts where she talks about her parents’ history and how her dad built up the company, I am all about it (yay hardworking dads!) but then his behavior when it comes to her situation is unbelievably appalling.
He’s so like “We must be rational about these things.” while his daughter/family/etc. suffer…
Plus, I think Miri’s comment about how her mom mistakes ruthlessness for ambition when she admires/is attracted to her dad is a useful one.
There are interesting things going on here with the stereotypical dichotomy of “women are emotional/weak and decisions made under the influence of emotions are suspect/subjective” and “men are rational/strong and decisions made under the influence of rational criteria/clear-cut principles are objective and can be trusted”, where a) Miri’s dad takes belief in this to extremes and b) Miri is able to survive an incredibly horrific situation through the force of her will/inner strength and c) obviously that dichotomy is bs (which we all know/believe, but I still see so many dudes putting faith in their own “objective rationality” long past the point of usefulness/matching up with reality).
Her characters are so complex and real. Nobody is wholly likable, even the characters who don’t do horrific things. Miri’s choice to pursue a relationship with Michael was confusing and uncomfortable for me, but I believed it–unlike many stories where the female love interest sticks by the male hero, naggy but loyal. It felt so much like Miri’s choice.
(I can’t quite get over the fact that his name is Michael Jameson, which is my boyfriend’s exact name. My Michael is not very similar to the book’s Michael, which is good. I am unlike Miri in most ways and would be a poor fit for Book Michael.)
I too read the book in one sitting, so am saving most of my thoughts for the last book club, but I will say that I hate Michael with the fire of one thousand suns. I hated him more than Miri’s dad, and more than the Commander. I think because he had so many opportunities to be better than he was, but consistently failed to do so.
also like, he had so many opportunities to not say dumb shit, and yet. AND YET.
I thought he was perfectly written. A flawless portrayal!
I’m done with the book and just got back from vacation, so I’m also waiting for the last post, but I couldn’t hold hate for Michael. He’s so amazingly clueless and clumsy and STUPID about so many things, and I really want to hate him, but the way he’s written I just couldn’t hold my grudge. I think that’s the hardest part for me about the book, the way Gay writes enough compassion into Michael and the Commander that I can’t burn them to the ground with hate. I don’t love them, but there’s an element of humanity that keeps my hate somewhere below 100%, and that percentage of not-hate makes me feel a little queasy.
Her father, on the other hand, and TiPierre…
When Miri says (paraphrasing): “I’m hard to love, but I am well-loved,” man.
“…and I try to love well in return”. oof.
I also read the book straight through, with only a couple of short breaks to cry/digest. I was really excited to read it because I love Roxane Gay’s writing SO MUCH, but I wasn’t quite prepared for how hard a read it would be.
On the subject of strength, I was continually struck by Miri’s refusal to show distress when speaking to her father on the phone. She knew her father wouldn’t give in and pay easily and she mirrored his stubborn resolve despite the awful things that were happening to her (and even though she hated her dad for it).
I love the way Michael and Miri’s love life is portrayed, precisely because it’s not this “everything was perfect and then it all went to shit narrative.” Obviously, they were in love, but it’s not as pretty as that. We see things immediately in Michael that we’re not happy with, and that we wouldn’t choose for ourselves, and things between them that seem totally incompatible. It’s not a perfect relationship, but it’s an incredibly realistic one.
What amazed me was how the book managed to show you how easy it is to get into the “I told you so” headspace. In the flashbacks I found it so easy to get judgmental about their life and relationship, and then this happens and it’s so easy to think “well, Miri, you should have seen this coming” (not the kidnapping, but her family’s reactions) and then all of a sudden we’re just as bad as everyone else in her life.
The only thing about Michael that I was a bit thrown by was how insistent he was at the beginning of their courtship. Miri is clearly not interested, and when he shows up and cooks for her it felt manipulative and like he wasn’t listening to her. Too much like a romantic comedy where persistence is what matters even if the woman doesn’t seem interested.
Once Miri decides she wants to date him, they’re one of my favorite depictions of a relationship ever, both the flashbacks when it’s relatively standard disagreements and during and after the kidnapping.
Definitely, that seems manipulative and like a romcom, but I’m sorta glad it’s there, because it shows that it’s not always so black and white. There are clearly manipulative people, and clearly respectful people, and then most people are really really in between. I can think of plenty of moments in my own relationship that, if written down and blasted on a screen, would read as manipulative moments like that. And maybe, at that early point in her life, she was easily seduced by that same persistent narrative. It just all adds up to one of the most realistic depictions of a relationship I’ve read in a long time.
Really glad to hear your take because that part was the only part of the book that as I said threw me off, and what you said really makes sense.
After I finished the book, I kept thinking that if Miri’s father had read a book like this, he wouldn’t have been able to do what he did.
I would like to talk about TiPierre, who works for the Commander and has what I can only describe as the horror-movie version of Nice Guy Syndrome. Holy shit.
Holy shit indeed. In a lot of ways he was the most horrifying character in a book with a LOT of horrifying characters. And you know that in his mind he wasn’t doing a damn thing wrong, which is just about unimaginable to me.
“horror-movie version of Nice Guy Syndrome” is absolutely the best way to describe it. Like that he actually believed he was doing her a favor. I don’t know, it is such a different feeling than scenes described with others or with the Commander.
Ahhhh TiPierre! Seriously. That was probably the most horrifying part to me. What the Commander did is terrible, but in such a black-and-white way that it’s easy to just stay angry at it. In some ways I think TiPierre mirrors Michael. He’s sick and twisted and clearly out for himself, but also seems to be trying to help her in what way he can? And assumes that being with just him and the commander would be better than being raped by the whole gang? And then that goes back to Michael, who later does a bunch of harmful shit under the assumption that it’s making things better. There’s this tiny kernel of logic in TiPierre’s thinking that’s obviously masked by all the other awful shit about him, but it makes him far more compelling.
THAT GUY IS THE MOST SKIN-CRAWLIEST GUY IN THE BOOK FOR ME. Ugh. Ughughugh.
This is the greatest novel I have read in years, and it _broke_ me.
I like to think of myself as a good reader (I went to grad school and everything!) but I did NOT get that Michael was white for a VERY long way into the book. I am assuming I missed something early on, but maybe I didn’t, because I went back and tried to find any passages about it and couldn’t.
Did other folks figure that out earlier than me? I think it finally hit me when Miri was recounting visiting Michael’s family farm and his mom told her “There aren’t many people like you around here.”
The reason I bring it up is mainly because it makes Michael’s reactions re: Haiti SO MUCH WORSE. I mean, I really felt like he was a pretty insensitive douche (and honestly felt like he overreacted to Miri laughing at the sheep).
I think the thing that tipped me off was the description of Christophe at the very beginning, having tan skin and blonde curls. But that’s on like, the first page and really easy to miss, and also for a few pages made me think Miri and her whole family were white. It brings up such a good point of how we read things, and what we will assume if not told otherwise. (Not in this book, but I think of how in pretty much every other book, unless someone is describe as not-white, they are presumed to be white. No one specifies “And there was Gatsby, a white man with blonde hair…”)
That’s a really good point, Jaya. Since Miri starts talking about Haiti early on (and possibly I gleaned from the back cover that she was Haitian?) my brain had already coded her as a WOC. I suppose I should question why I then assumed Michael was also a POC.
Lacking any description of him, though, you have to draw some mental picture for yourself as you’re reading.
(Tangentially-related to this topic, I spent the beginning of A Tree Grows In Brooklyn thinking that Francie’s family was Black and only caught on when it starts going into the family history in Germany and her father’s Irish hair or whatever. I don’t know why! I read it for the first time this year and something about what I’d absorbed of the story through cultural osmosis made me believe they were Black. Who knows.)
I believe that is the first time it is made absolutely clear that he’s white. I actually really liked that it was ambiguous for so long, though I read some of her reluctance to date him as race-related — i.e, who’s this dumb clueless white guy and why won’t he leave me alone sort of thing.
yeah, maybe cause I’m a white guy and I just assumed (a reason I actually prefer some description of a character’s looks because if not I, and many others, default to a cisgender white person), but I figured Michael was white all along. He just seemed like a well intentioned but kind of clueless white guy all along.
Ugh, I did the same thing. I was up almost until 2am. I finished the book and sat and stared into nothing for about ten minutes. Then wrote a frenzied journal entry in response to the book — which usually helps! It's usually cathartic and helps me get out all the book-related horrors! Not this time, though. I couldn't fall asleep and when I finally did, I had nightmares.
My brother came home when I was either mid-sit-and-stare or mid-frantic-scribble and he'd brought a dude friend who I've only met once or twice. Little Bro was all, "Hey Chris, what's up, do you wanna beer?" and I muttered something about how men were all garbage and it was time for woman to inherit the earth. THAT friend certainly thinks I'm totally normal, you can bet.
THAT GUY IS THE MOST SKIN-CRAWLIEST GUY IN THE BOOK FOR ME. Ugh. Ughughugh.
I’m really interested in people’s reactions to Miri–I didn’t LIKE her, but by god, I didn’t DISLIKE her either. It felt like the book was not interested in my affection for Miri at all–it is about bad things, happening to people.
Good is irrelevant.
I loved it.
I’m joining this late and couldn’t even…make the first one but I’m glad I’m not the only one who couldn’t stop at Chapter 12. you just have to plow straight through. there is no way I could have borne not knowing what was going to happen to Miri. That’s probably a strength of the writing, that I usually know the character will make it out alive but here by chapter 11 I was really honestly worried that she wouldn’t make it.
But yeah: strength and weakness. Lorraine is such a great character and I love the way she and Miri interact and how their relationship seems to me really not at all based around Michael even though it ought to be. Like at the beginning it certainly is and Lorraine seems to have her reservations about Miri being black, that’s not really what it ends up being about later, even in Miri’s Before (though I think that’s a little later, oops).
I also was so….kind of drawn to Michael, even though if I had met him in real life I would be a little attracted but mostly very offput by his personality. In fiction he’s more charming, for some reason, than the guys I know irl who are like this. He’s strangely naive when it comes to places outside of his scope but I also love him so much for loving Miri so much. Fictional relationships where one person is a really patient rock while the other one is unsure or confused are kind of my jam (because of their strange power dynamics, not in spite of them) and this fit right in.
I really want to talk about the relationship between Miri and Lorraine but I think we have to wait until the next discussion. Their relationship really spoke to me because of the relationship I have with my mother-in-law. Let’s agree to pick up that in August.
Yes please, I was fascinated by their relationship.
Maybe it's because it's condensed, or because it's been a few weeks since I read the book from the beginning, but in short story form, Miri's voice seems even *more* stark to me, somehow. Or maybe it's the combination of having read the book first, and now reading the short story, knowing all the excruciating details of what happens to her. I don't know. But the short story is giving me chills just as much as the book did, even though the level of detail is so much less. "I fought. I begged them to use condoms. I did what I had to do" packs just as much of a wallop as every single violent scene in the book.
I do not want to suggest that I would be as strong/stubborn as Miri were I in the same situation, because I am weak as hell, and cry at the drop of a hat, but I definitely understand it. I hate showing people how much power they have over me, and pretending to be strong, pretending I'm not hurt, that I'm okay, is my screwed up way of protecting myself. I can be very stubborn about it and it often backfires on me, so I do not recommend. I would probably break long before Miri, but I would have the same impulse.
Trying his best to do the right thing, and failing miserably at it. LIKE MOST OF US MOST OF THE TIME!!!
I'm done with the book and just got back from vacation, so I'm also waiting for the last post, but I couldn't hold hate for Michael. He's so amazingly clueless and clumsy and STUPID about so many things, and I really want to hate him, but the way he's written I just couldn't hold my grudge. I think that's the hardest part for me about the book, the way Gay writes enough compassion into Michael and the Commander that I can't burn them to the ground with hate. I don't love them, but there's an element of humanity that keeps my hate somewhere below 100%, and that percentage of not-hate makes me feel a little queasy.
Her father, on the other hand, and TiPierre…
I didn't think she was pretending to be strong so much as buying into the script she knew her father had already written. She knew he wouldn't pay for her, and she's too pragmatic to believe even for a second that she could change his mind by her words, so all she could do was preserve her dignity and pride.
And actually, I think she knew that if she'd pleaded then there'd be no hope of her father paying AT ALL EVER because part of his point is that if he pays for one, they'll take everyone. So if he refused to pay, then they hurt her and she told him and THEN he paid, in his mind they would take everyone in his family and torture them immediately, because they knew that's what it would take. So if she'd said anything about the torture she would have no hope of rescue at all.