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Okay, so I’m, you know, obviously filling in for Nicole today, and I have to tell you I finished the book like two weeks ago, and I don’t really care about the concept of spoilers (I would have been an amazing Greek in the Golden Age, when men were born with the knowledge of the time and manner of their deaths), so if anyone wants to talk about the end of the book, I’m not going to yell at you in the comments. This isn’t really a book you can put down, I think? Or like, sure, you can do whatever, life’s a rich tapestry, but once I got into it I wasn’t going to walk away from in order to interact with other people or watch more YouTube videos about Atlantis. Once you’re in, you’re in.
There were a few times when I had to set it down and take some DEEP BREATHS, for sure, because I am a charmed infant with the constitution of a coddled egg, and there’s some heavy stuff here. Or, you know, exclusively heavy stuff, and it’s interesting to see which characters draw back from pain and which characters embrace it and which characters pretend it doesn’t exist.
Also, this section has a lot of Ti-Pierre in it, and he’s a really difficult character to get past. He’s the most twisted, vicious version of the Nice Guy that I can possibly think of, and I had a slightly painful physical reaction every time I saw his name on the page.
It was a relief, at times, to go back and learn more about Michael and Miri’s relationship (what are your feelings about Michael? I have ENDLESS SYMPATHY FOR HIM, because in his eyes I see myself, or something), or her parents’ marriage; it felt like Roxane had a great sense for when the reader had had “enough” — she’s a much more merciful captor than the Commander. Did you have more of a problem with the actively terrible characters, or the characters who were ostensibly “on” Miri’s side, but found it difficult to act decisively on her behalf? You can be mad at both, of course.
I AM SO EXCITED TO GET TO THE NEXT PART SO WE CAN TALK SOME MORE ABOUT LORRAINE, but in the meantime I will content myself by saying: Lorraine. I have thoughts and feelings about Lorraine and Miri’s relationship.
Okay, you have three weeks to finish the book, then we can all come back and talk about THE ENDING. THE ENDINGGGGG.
Tags: an untamed state, an untamed state book club, book club, books, heavy stuff, roxane gay
I am also sympathetic to Michael, because I feel, deep down, like I might not have been able to do better than he did.
Without getting too much into the later chapters, I also feel like Miri comes to a point where she has to make really triage-like decisions about what she does and doesn’t need, if that makes sense. And I think she knew what she needed, and what she was able to work with.
like when you look at who she cuts off and who she lets in and who she tells the truth to and who she doesn’t, it’s coming from a place of self-preservation, and I think she makes the right call for her
Definitely. And I think that partially because of the nature of what she went through, she might have felt like Michael couldn’t be the one to help her, and that would’ve been the case regardless of what he did.
Yes, very sympathetic toward Michael, because who outside of our perfect bubble of womanhood and misandry would even think to act any other way? Of COURSE you’d step in and try to force your loved one to go to the hospital because you want them to be ok. Of COURSE you’d force them to talk about it, and assume it wasn’t awful if they didn’t say something. And of COURSE you’d be like “I wanna give you time but also we have a baby and there are many difficult things happening right now.”
Not that it made it any easier to read, or made me want to punch him any less, or all that, but that’s what made it so good.
Lots of sympathy for Michael for just this reason. He always makes me think of when I’ve said the wrong thing to someone or just not handled someone else’s pain in an ideal way. I don’t think I’ve ever been quite as bad as he was in some parts of the book (hopefully I don’t flatter myself), but really, who does act in a perfect way in a situation like that? There probably is no perfect way, for one thing.
I’m sympathetic towards Michael yes, but he seemed so so unwilling to accept that anything beyond the kidnapping had happened and even as time went on (I’m not sure where we are with Ch 24) seemed uninterested in the how Miri was going to recover from the trauma and what that trauma was. His unwillingness to understand infuriated me.
It was really frustrating, but it’s such a specific type of trauma that if you don’t really know the intricacies of it, you sort of think that time will just make it better. And, I think at this point she was still refusing to say she experienced anything more than getting beat up, so he took it at face value. It was dumb on his part, but I can totally see how, given no other evidence, you’d just go on that.
I can forgive much of Michael’s behavior for exactly those reasons (and because his parents told him off which pleased me). But their fight after their first trip to Haiti solidified my biggest relationship fear. He dismisses and belittles a major part of who Miri is and while she can forgive him, I would never.
I’m late to this party, but I really sympathized with Michael regarding the trip. I once went to Nepal to visit my then boyfriend, who was a white american Ex-pat living there, nominally to work for NGOs. He loved it, but I felt…destroyed by Nepal.
There were these little kids and they were glue addicts and they came up to the car and begged and many of them were prostitutes.
There were soldiers everywhere, just these young kids with assault rifles, and rolling blackouts, and I got food poisoning, and the place he worked which was the health department for the country, didn’t have any employees and the halls were all piled up with medical files just in dusty stacks.
There were giant spiders, and squatting toilets, and we couldn’t go to certain areas because there were riots, and then one day we were in a shop when there was a riot and the shopkeepers all rolled down the grilles and they had to lock us in while the people outside threw rocks.
It was shattering. And he was sort of blithe about it. He loved it there and I’m not dismissing the beauty and the amazing things…but it was an incredibly poor, war torn country. And he was making a living off of “helping”. I mean maybe he was doing good there but…I dunno I couldn’t square it all off. I felt very much like I wasn’t supposed to be there, and very conflicted about him being there and unsafe while I was there- or at least never sure if I was actually unsafe or not, and not completely able to relax and trust his assessment of our safety.
So Michael, I get where he was coming from. He was overly jokey and a huge dumbo, about it but it’s more that Miri shut him down too. She’s got that “I can criticize my brother but you can’t” going on, and I thought he’s got this thing where he is actually seeing the disparities with his American eyes, and being like, “how can we be waited on hand and foot and then go to this school and it’s wrenching…” and he wants common ground too.
And he’s not completely wrong about the horribleness of the place! He’s not right to not understand his wife, but they both have that going for each other- she laughs about the cows.
I am sympathetic to Michael while also wanting so badly for him to get the the therapy he needed. Obviously his trauma was no where near Miri’s, but at the same time he really needed a neutral person to talk to about the shit that had happened. Clearly he had no business expecting Miri to be there for him.
I had a huge problem with Miri’s father as I read it because I fully bought into Miri’s point of view, but the more I think about it the more I wonder if he really was so terrible or misguided. I mean, he should have paid, but we know what is happening to Miri. Maybe he was right that most of the time kidnappninT
That was one of those parts where I was screaming to Miri to “just fucking tell your dad what is happening to you! Beg! Cry! Whatever!” I mean she seems to know it would be of no use, but good lord I would have broken down so fast.
I keep thinking that I would have cried and begged on the phone, too, but it is amazing the shit and abuse people will take just to prove to others that they are strong. She wanted her father to be proud of her and it broke her.
See, I didn’t really read it as Miri trying to be strong, I read it as her being realistic. She knew her father wouldn’t pay, so there was no reason to fight for that. She would only humiliate herself and at that point all she had left was her dignity. I didn’t think it was her trying to prove anything to her father, I thought she was refusing to beat her head against a wall.
I also got the impression that showing the pain would have actively worked against her, because admitting that she was being tortured would play right into her father’s reasons for refusing to pay. If she told him, he *definitely* wouldn’t pay because then the kidnappers would know exactly how to get him to pay and they’d skip the beginning steps when they took the next family member. So it actually seemed like self-protection in a way, because she wasn’t playing into her father’s reasons for holding back?
Should have ended with “most of the time kidnappings don’t involve rape.”
I find that part hard to believe though. I felt like he must have been deluding himself.
I didn’t buy that either Michael or her father didn’t really know what was going on. I found Michael’s insistence afterward that she tell him, his refusal to treat her with the care she so obviously needed unless she retraumatized herself by reliving it, every bit as hard to read as the rape scenes. How could he not know? How could he not assume? And it’s even less believable to me that her father wouldn’t.
Ditto. Even if Michael can claim ignorance, all Haitians know what happens to kidnapped women.
Part of that is what made it believable. I feel like every character had a moment of completely deluding themselves about something in order to keep going.
see, this is why I like book club – y’all are forcing me to be sympathetic to Michael, when, while reading the book, I kept thinking “nope – dealbreaker! cut and run, Miri!”
Oh, yeah, I mean, I have SYMPATHY and EMPATHY for Michael, but I am 100% Team Miri, and if she needed to leave him, I would SUPPORT THAT DECISION.
Agreed, but I felt that way about her too. Like, she told *us* how much she loves him and she’s always with him or whatever, but she did not really tell *him* that, and often acted just the opposite.
If you’ve read ahead:
I was really frustrated with her behavior in the before — the same behaviors that I totally viscerally understood when she did them in the after, like the running away and shutting him out — which made me feel like I needed to spend some more time with why I was so frustrated with them before. Like I get what makes her react like that now; why did she react like that before? What was going on there? I still don’t really know.
Yeah, I didn’t fully understand “before” Miri. Why she was so driven, why she chose to stay single and remain a virgin, and I don’t really know what it was about Michael that made her want him? I’m not sure if that wasn’t fleshed out enough, or if I was reading too quickly because I wanted get to the present. I probably need to read it again, but I don’t think I can.
I sort of read into her father’s behavior when she was kidnapped a whole lifetime’s pattern of their interaction. She grew up with this man for her father, and with a mother who she knew would take his side over hers.
I think it’s also important to note that we’re seeing her behavior “before” through the lens of who she is after.
Those are good points.
God, Ti-Pierre. I feel like I want to talk about Michael just because he’s like the least painful thing to discuss. I think the Ti-Pierre parts of this book were some of the hardest to read.
Possible spoilers because I don’t have the book with me and am not sure if this is in this section, but are we to the part where we see Ti-Pierre in his home environment? That was rough, too. I liked that Roxanne Gay showed us the kidnappers outside of where Miri was being held, though, because it made them both more banal and more monstrous.
UGHHHH TI-PIERRE. The most horrifying. To do that to someone and then be able to just go home and hang out and lie about it like it’s no big thing?
Also, I kept going back to what she mentioned in the very opening–that her kidnappers are young men. With the nature of what they were inflicting on Miri, I tended to think that they were older, but then had to remind myself that they’re young, young, young.
And to expect Miri to be grateful… so hard to deal with.
yeah, the parts with Ti-Pierre were among the hardest, to the point that I don’t remember them as clearly as many others.
yes! it got to a point where I prefered the honest brutality of the Commander than creepy nice guy Ti-Pierre
Agreed.
I was so glad when she bit his cheek off. I wanted Michael and Victor to find the house and shoot each and every one of them in the head. I’m not generally a violent person, I’m against the death penalty and everything, but if they weren’t going to be caught and sent away to prison, I just wanted them all to die.
RIGHT?? When they were there at his place I was like COME ON YOU *MUST KNOW* IT’S HIM, JUST KILL HIM
Then I was like wow, where did that come from??
When Ti-Pierre says something to her later about “your cousin” and she maybe (I don’t remember now) pieces it together that Victor and Michael confronted him and didn’t know it was him … that just sounds like the seeds of destruction of guilt and blame and awfulness in general between Mireille and Michael. Does she tell Michael that T-P (heh) told her that?
I went back to check out the previous book club posts and was surprised to see that people did not like Miri. I am wondering to those who did not like her in chapters 3-12, how are you feeling about her now?
I didn’t mention it in previous threads, but I am not sure I like her, still.
Yeah, I never liked her. But I found her story interesting and compelling and my heart ached for her. I did eventually sort of get over my need to like her. I mean, she’s not real and I don’t have to be her friend. But in the beginning of the book I was having trouble getting into her story. I found all of her early flashbacks really grating. But then they came to be a welcome relief!
But I did love Lorraine! She was probably the only character I could say I truly “liked.”
ugh I LOVE Miri and I only love Lorraine inasmuch as she comes to recognize Miri’s GOLDEN, PRICKLY RADIANCE
I love Miri. I can’t imagine doing any better than she did. Her fight and will to survive and then utter unknowingness in how to live in the after.
I love Miri too, but I feel like I would be *incredibly* shy around her/intimidated by her.
Which is maybe a silly thing to say about a fictional person?
I love Miri. How could anyone not love Miri? I don’t see why anyone would like Lorraine (up to ch. 24, stopped there to read this post and comment). She was nothing but rude to Miri until after Miri had waited on her hand and foot for weeks.
I didn’t like her, and continued not to throughout the book–but I found her compelling and honest in a way that I don’t usually find capital-u-Unlikeable-white-male-protagonists. I didn’t need to like her to be engaged with her story.
Oh my god, yes, Lorraine, please, let’s just talk about Lorraine FOREVER.
OK!
I think one of the problems with in-laws is that it is a funny relationship where it is kind of parent/child but at the same time it is relationship between two adults. I have problems with my in-laws because they treat me like a child sometimes but mostly when my husband, their child, is around. I find when it is just my mother-in-law and I together we get on great and she is one of my best friends. Also I find I can come to her with problems I can’t talk to others about because she is both a mother to me but also an adult friend. I might be projecting but I think that Lorraine and Miri’s relationship is strong because of this complexity. Lorraine is someone who can love Miri like a daughter but at the same time sees her as an adult.
Yes, I totally cosign. I think that as adults, it’s not very common that people really surprise us – and both Lorraine & Miri are quiet, wonderful surprises to one another. It makes their closeness feel very real to me.
Relatedly, I’m a huge sucker for characters who continually show us new sides of themselves, and Lorraine is so, so deftly drawn in this way.
Post-chapter 24-discussion:
I honestly didn’t know where Miri was going when she drove away, and when she showed up at Lorraine’s doorstep I was SO RELIEVED. All my breath let out and my whole body sagged and I hadn’t even realized how tense I was.
I figured it out pretty fast, but I also had a huge and quite physical sense of relief.
Me too! I started crying for the first time upon reading that part and basically didn’t stop until the end.
ME TOO. I am sure it says some things about me, my relationship with my mother, and feelings about being cared for and loved (i.e. I don’t know how to do it), but all through the awful torture and everything, it hurt but I didn’t cry … but the Lorraine bits totally made me cry.
her racism really bothered me at the beginning, given how interesting she became. It’s realistic certainly, Roxane knows the midwest (for good and bad, ie Best Buy) but it still annoyed me.
I get that, for sure. But it’s part of what makes her so real to me: she’s got issues, and not inconsequential ones, but they don’t stop her from being a fundamentally loving person. We’re all products of our influences, and many of them aren’t positive – some are downright cataclysmic. But people who have some bad can also have some real good, and it’s hard to sympathetically achieve that balance in fiction.
(And, well, in life.)
yeah, it makes her real and it’s super frustrating! I know people in real life like that who also annoy me.
Fair enough!
Her racism bothered me as well. I found myself wishing that Miri had gone to Mona instead.
I am a black woman who has had multiple experiences with being hated by the mothers of non-white boys. Lorraine just made me tired and disgusted and tired of being disgusted. Miri had to PROVE her worthiness to this woman. I didn”t read her as loving at all. She felt a duty to Miri, for sure. But the woman is so racist she can’t even accept a black woman who her son loves. She doesn’t accept Miri until Miri does what Michael and Lorraine’s husband (Glenn? Gene? I don’t remember) fail to do: take care of her. Like a nurse. Or hired help. A mammy.
Dollars to donuts Lorraine is out there praising her daughter-in-law as “one of the good ones.”
That’s such a good point, and something that, at least to make, makes their relationship even more interesting. Some parts can be so healthy and good, and others are just toxic. And the toxicity doesn’t negate all the good they do for each other, but their good doesn’t absolve them of their problems.
“I am a black woman who has had multiple experiences with being hated by the mothers of non-white boys.”
I meant “non-black boys” here.
I'm pretty good at telling just enough of the truth to hide the fact that there is a worse truth underneath, and I've been mad at people in the past for not somehow figuring out that there was more going on. It's taken me a while to understand that that's what people do when they love you sometimes– they take what you say and don't interrogate because it's painful for them, too. It was all so realistic and incredibly frustrating.
agreed, i would have a hard time forgiving that.
I had trouble at the beginning, too. I didn't care about her relationship at all because I felt (maybe a lot like she felt before Michael) that her relationship status was far and away the least interesting thing about her. It was only after I read the ending that I understood that the beginning set up the early relationship and then how it shifted, but I would probably skim that part again if I read the book again. Or maybe not, knowing the ending! I don't know!
The way Lorraine handled the emergency is how I would hope to handle an emergency/ exactly the way I'd want to be taken care of.
See, I didn't really read it as Miri trying to be strong, I read it as her being realistic. She knew her father wouldn't pay, so there was no reason to fight for that. She would only humiliate herself and at that point all she had left was her dignity. I didn't think it was her trying to prove anything to her father, I thought she was refusing to beat her head against a wall.
I also got the impression that showing the pain would have actively worked against her, because admitting that she was being tortured would play right into her father's reasons for refusing to pay. If she told him, he *definitely* wouldn't pay because then the kidnappers would know exactly how to get him to pay and they'd skip the beginning steps when they took the next family member. So it actually seemed like self-protection in a way, because she wasn't playing into her father's reasons for holding back?
That's such a good point, and something that, at least to make, makes their relationship even more interesting. Some parts can be so healthy and good, and others are just toxic. And the toxicity doesn't negate all the good they do for each other, but their good doesn't absolve them of their problems.
I love Miri too, but I feel like I would be *incredibly* shy around her/intimidated by her.
Which is maybe a silly thing to say about a fictional person?