March 15, 2024
A chance reunion with a childhood friend sends a young woman reeling through the surreal taxonomy of her life. Seven is 24 years old, works in the laundry room of a chiropractor's office, and still lives at home with her mother and grandmother. Her days consist of a monotony measured in repeated sensation: the "pigskin" texture of the thin towels, the "symphonic" sound of the chiropractor's urine stream in the laundry room toilet, the jellylike residue of the soap dispenser that "dribbl[es] like a nosebleed" and must be wiped clean every hour. At home, Seven follows similarly long-established rituals, watching television with her mother and her grandmother in the "apartment [they have] been renting since before [she] was born." Though her mother encourages her to move out on her own someday, there seems to be nothing that could shake Seven from this cycle--which serves to forestall the vision of a girl's future her grandmother once presented to her: "You're born. You leave your family before it can eat you. You are eaten by another family and give birth to its children. You make your life a service to others, and in exchange you are never alone with your desires." Then, while cleaning one of the chiropractor's treatment rooms, Seven comes face-to-face with Cecilia, a beloved childhood friend and subject of Seven's most closely guarded fantasies. Cecilia's reemergence in Seven's life instigates a flurry of uncontrolled memory wherein the girls' shared experiments with forbidden sensuality express themselves in Seven's desire to consume Cecilia's very being, to enshroud her beloved in the cavities of her body, to become her--if not in this life, then perhaps in the next. An erotic, dissociative exploration of obsession, this slender novella reconfigures desire as a corporeal function as integral as breathing or digestion. While the visceral, disorienting nature of the language sometimes obscures the images themselves, the work of reading this book leaves the reader with the same feeling one has after eating a particularly indulgent meal--satiation, with the knowledge of more hunger to come. A truly unique voice.
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Starred review from March 11, 2024
A 24-year-old woman is flooded with fraught memories of her early teen years after encountering an estranged friend in Chang’s striking latest (after Organ Meats). Seven works as a cleaner in a chiropractor’s office and still lives at home with her mother and grandmother Ama, whose fantastical stories shape the family’s mythology and Seven’s obsession with human waste (Ama says she was thrown into a well as an infant, then later rescued from a nearby city’s toilet and immediately put to work cleaning it). At her job, Seven listens through the bathroom door while others pee, visualizing the receptionist’s discreet trickle as “the rain in movies.” Her odd routine is upended by the appearance of Cecilia, whom she hasn’t seen since they were 13. As they ride the bus together, Seven reminisces about eating Cecilia’s stray hairs and chewed-up snacks in middle school, and how the two would practice kissing in the school bathroom. Their friendship dissolved after a bizarre sexual encounter, which produced mutual feelings of hurt and shame. As Chang works up to the details of that incident, she explores the ways in which the body can elicit both desire and disgust, and offers an original look at the volatility of a teen friendship. It’s another high-water mark from a prolific and provocative author. Agent: Julia Kardon, HG Literary.