Indelicacy - Amina Cain (2020)

On the heels of Dept. of Speculation, here we now have Indelicacy. I predicted, after the fact, that a whole slew of Offill imitators would flood the marketplace, around 2016. At first blush, over the first few pages, I thought this was part of that imagined slew, but it is not. 

There is a big reveal in the acknowledgments of this book that I feel is not inappropriate to mention:

"Short passages from Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Genet's The Maids, and Octavia Butler's Kindred appear here, and I've named my characters after characters in those works, as well as Clarice Lispector's The Apple in the Dark. A passage also appears from Goya: The Witches and the Old Women Album." (159)

Elena Ferrante is not acknowledged perhaps because Cain has not directly lifted from her work in the same manner, but Indelicacy owes a greater debt to Ferrante than Offill. One might make this mistake because it is "minimalist," but it does not go as far as Offill. We do not learn the main character's name until almost the last chapter. But there are other proper names (rather than a letter like G. or B., or their occupation). It is not framed as a series of non-sequiturs, though there are a number of them. The story takes place in some sort of alternate world that is vague and shadowy, and the protagonist occasionally departs from the genteel tone of the novel by saying something (forgive me) indelicate. While attending a reading at a library by an author she likes, he disappoints her, as does another author interviewing him, by conducting an obsequious exchange, taking success for granted:

"When I walked out of the room, I said simply, 'You're both worms,' and they looked at me, not knowing how to respond to a statement like that. 'Of the worst kind. When you open your mouths, you are male worms eating from a toilet.'" (119-120)

Or another nonchalant aside:

"Before I had finished my soup, an older man came and sat near me. He wasn't eating; he appeared to be doing nothing at all. He looked at me, then looked again. Men looking at women like that are truly horrible. Especially when they are so much older, when they are nearly dead themselves." (28)

The plot is very simple and basic. A woman works as a cleaning lady at a museum. She makes friends with her co-worker, Antoinette, and they eventually become best friends. There is real love between them. The woman soon meets a man. Here is the story of how they met:

"It's strange my husband noticed me, but he came to the museum to see paintings of Caravaggio and then of Goya, and the third time I was mopping the floor of the coatroom when he came for his jacket and umbrella. We stood together near the coats for some time, talking, and then he walked me home.
'Aren't you embarrassed?' I asked, and he said he was never embarrassed by anything.
We were married at the start of the summer and hardly anyone attended--a few of his friends, a cousin from Brazil. No one I knew was there." (33)

The novel almost never identifies any specific people or places, except Brazil and Jamaica and the painters referenced here. 

After getting married, the woman is able to quit her job at the museum, and focus full-time on her writing. She wants to be a writer. There are many ruminations on writing here. She doesn't know what to write about, except descriptions of paintings she admires. She becomes estranged from Antoinette after marriage, as she quits her job at the museum, and laments the loss. She develops an appreciation for dance and becomes a near-constant concert-goer. She takes ballet lessons and she meets Dana, who replaces Antoinette as her closest, dearest friend. There are shades of homo-eroticism in these friendships, and it is more pronounced with Dana. She gets drunk for the first time with Dana, and tells her husband about it, and he asks if she wants to get high with him for the first time, and so they smoke hashish. While there's nothing particularly anachronistic about this, it feels that way, perhaps to comment on the shifting tones of a patriarchal society. The woman is financially dependent on her husband. He is marrying "beneath him." It is almost old-fashioned with a modern sheen.

Eventually, Antoinette and the woman are reunited and resume their friendship. Antoinette has married, and loves her husband Frederick, though they are poor. She gets pregnant shortly after marriage. The woman has been married to her husband for three years. She does not love him, but she does love the life their marriage has made possible. She has never particularly wanted children, and she has never gotten pregnant, despite having sex without contraceptives. The woman and her husband also have a housekeeper, Solange, who becomes the other major figure in the novel. 

While this book did not knock me out quite like Dept. of Speculation, and while I often picked it up with some measure of indifference, the more I think about it, the better it seems. Because it is the fantasy all would-be writers have: to marry someone rich so we don't have to work and can instead devote the rest of our lives to the pursuit of artistic beauty. It is the idea of heaven, to some. And though like heaven, it is a fantasy, unlike heaven it is in fact a reality for some, and there is certainly a dark side to absolute freedom, when it has been bestowed by another. And yet the husband is not a villain, even when he devolves into a rant that is one of the outstanding moments of novel:

"'Women, I know they're attuned to something, they're always tuned in, I guess. I've often felt that women were tuned in to things they have no business being tuned in to. But you can't stop it, can you? Not you. You encourage it, in fact! Don't do that!......I don't even like sex! But I do like comfort. Men told me. Why didn't I listen? And just who are you, anyway? Just what are you attuned to? I've only wanted to live a normal life, and with you that's impossible. Do you know what people say about you? Do you have any idea? They feel sorry for me! And now I know why...You're like an old piece of pie I can't throw away, a very good pie. But I rescued you. You know that! And yet, I'd never seen anyone so alluring. You're always turning away. Turn toward me. Haven't you ever felt yourself carried away? Toward a woman?...Look at me, you are my wife, first and foremost, and I will be loyal to you. Let's go away, I'll take you to Brazil after all. We'll walk up and down the avenues. I'll protect you and keep you close. I gave very dear things to you, many, many jewels. Everything you're wearing right now. You are a proper woman. No, you are not. Clothes can't make a woman proper. Do you know how hard I've tried?...I don't think you realize how hard I work--not once have you come to my office!'
That is where I stopped listening." (150-151)

This novel is a complicated, troubling examination of class and power in friendship and marriage. All of the characters are flawed (Antoinette and Dana, less so). At the same time, it is a deceptively simple story. It is inspirational in a similar way to Dept. of Speculation because it presents a different sort of way of writing a novel. You don't need to pepper your narrative with complex characters and an ingenious plot. You can keep it simple and speak your personal truth. You can simply ask yourself why you write, and you can follow that purpose to its logical end. 

Grade: A-

Catch and Kill - Ronan Farrow (2019)

Previously, we had occasion to review She Said in short-form. That is a terrible review, I'm sorry, not one I would put in my portfolio. But I did say I would expand on it, when I got around to Catch and Kill. And I may do this again with Apropos of Nothing, when my library account is no longer suspended. I gave She Said an A-. I thought I had given it a B+. I was going to put Catch and Kill just a notch above it, an A-. I cannot in good conscience give this an A, even though it is an acclaimed work by a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. Do not misunderstand--this is a very good book--I just wouldn't put it up there with Dept. of Speculation and The Night of the Gun. This is only because the story is unwieldy. I am sure that a lot of material was cut out, but there is still too much material. It really is an epic read at 414 pages. There is a great style to its structure: 59 one-word chapters. Each chapter settles on an image that tends to represent the entire scene. And looking at them now, I can instantly transport myself to them.

I see Chapter 32 is "Hurricane" and I remember the reference to Hurricane Harvey. 

I see Chapter 17 is "666" and I remember that is the safe deposit box number they almost take to hold the sensitive documents in the story, in case anything happens to Farrow.

I see Chapter 25 is "Pundit" and I remember that is his partner's dog, and how he warms up one of the victims and lightens the mood, and I remember how it was one of the best chapters in the book, even though the name of the dog annoyed me.

I see Chapter 50 is "Playmate" and I remember that is about the Playboy model that carried on a consensual relationship with Trump and the payouts she received. 

Somewhere along the line, it becomes clear that Catch and Kill is not only about Harvey Weinstein. It tends to chart a great deal of reporting Farrow did after his New Yorker story. At another point, he pursues a previously-buried story about an alleged love child of Trump (now in her early 30's and working at a genetics testing company), who had also been paid off in the late months of 2015. Farrow finds her father, who tells her she won't talk. Later on, he goes on Rachel Maddow's show and divulges how NBC tried to kill the story. This is largely about that. And Non-Disclosure Agreements. Sometimes, it almost reads like one, long NDA. They are an ever-present theme. It finally ends with Matt Lauer, who is also a looming character in this book.

And this is ultimately what puts it one "notch" above She Said: it is more of a personal statement. There are even certain moments that seem to break the fourth wall (see page 406; see also page 331, less directly). Perhaps, because there is only one protagonist and one author, there is greater unity and personal depth to the storytelling. 

For stretches, Catch and Kill is truly great. It tends to ride the wave of developments in the story, and some parts read more quickly than others. However, it began to vaguely disappoint me around page 300. I can't explain why. Maybe at that point I was thinking, "Alright, enough already, we get the point." Farrow finds a different way to tell multiple versions of a set fact pattern ending with a non-disclosure agreement. To his credit, he tends to keep it fresh, yet the reader may simply find some of the story about the story being killed at NBC less compelling or tedious. I think that really is the heart of my criticism. Some of the names do not register as characters, and it can be difficult to separate the characters and remember their role in the story.

Noah Oppenheim, for example, leads the "wrecking crew" against the story at NBC. The running gag of the book is that Oppenheim wrote the screenplay for Jackie, which many do not view as a good movie. Farrow's mother in particular, did not enjoy it. But in Catch and Kill, there are heroes, villains and bystanders, and few are exactly as they seem. Perhaps this element keeps it interesting. One is tempted to view every character that gets introduced as "good" or "bad" and it becomes very difficult to keep track of who-is-who on the NBC/Comcast corporate ladder. Farrow really should have included an organizational chart, a la One Hundred Years of Solitude. He does write an incredible coda for Oppenheim:

"'My boss! Okay? I have a boss. I don't run NBC News exclusively,' he said, then seemed to catch himself. 'You know, everyone was involved in this decision. You can speculate what Kim Harris's motives are, you can speculate what Andy's motives are, you can speculate what my motives are. All I can tell you is at the end of the day, they felt like, you know, there was a consensus about the organization's comfort level moving forward.'

He reminded me, twice, that he'd revived my career after my show was canceled. That we'd been friends. He hoped we could get a beer and laugh about it all in a few months. I struggled to understand what he was asking for. Gradually, he let it out. 'I'm just making a plea,' he said. 'If the opportunity ever does present itself to you to say that maybe I'm not the villain in all this, I would be grateful.'

And there it was, at the end of his arguments: an unwillingness not just to take responsibility but to admit that responsibility might, in some place, in someone's hands, exist. It was a consensus about the organization's comfort level moving forward that stopped the reporting. It was a consensus about the organization's comfort level moving forward that bowed to lawyers and threats; that hemmed and hawed and parsed and shrugged; that sat on multiple credible allegations of sexual misconduct and disregarded a recorded admission of guilt. That anodyne phrase, that language of indifference without ownership, upheld so much silence in so many places. It was a consensus about the organization's comfort level moving forward that protected Harvey Weinstein and men like him, that yawned and gaped and enveloped law firms and PR shops and executive suites and industries; that swallowed women whole.

Noah Oppenheim was not the villain." (404-405)

Certainly, a documentary about the subject matter of this book would be explosive, but it would more likely resurface as a feature, and in the movie, Oppenheim would be the bad guy, and Rich McHugh would be the good guy. I think. All of the women are good. Except for Lisa Bloom. Almost everyone at NBC is bad, but there are layers of moral culpability threading the organization, cutting between business interests and journalistic integrity. Perhaps Tom Brokaw, or Meredith Vieira, exemplify the ambiguity of the interests at play. Brokaw--a mentor to Farrow, a titan of the industry and the medium, a friend of Weinstein and still a champion of the story--also got #metoo'd, but that consisted of three complaints, many years ago, that were part of the "permissive atmosphere when it came to harassment by prominent men at the network." (393) Vieira looks the other way on Lauer, until she can't possibly do so any longer (Ann Curry did the same, to a lesser degree, earlier).

I see that a problem in reviewing this book is reciting its revelations without proper attention to detail. To be clear, the reporting is nuanced. The reference to the "recorded admission of guilt" in the above-excerpt, for example, is really just Weinstein saying, "I'm used to this," to Ambra Gutierrez, who was fending him off and wearing a wire. But there is always more to it than that, more context than one sentence can appropriately convey. As such I will not be fact-checking this review but I encourage all readers to flag any incorrect or misleading statements as they see fit, for I would not want to appear slanted on such sensitive issues. (Yet I did also read the NY Times review recently, and saw how deftly it was summarized, and wanted to do better. We did hit on a few of the same points, if that means anything.)

Along the way, the famous figures appear: Rose McGowan, Ashley Judd, Anabella Sciorra, Mira Sorvino, Rosanna Arquette, Asia Argento, Claire Forlani, Daryl Hannah Meryl Streep (who is unimpeachable...because she's Meryl Streep) and Susan Sarandon ("Oh, Ronan...you're gonna be in trouble."). 

And then there are all of the non-famous people: Ambra Gutierrez, Zelda Perkins, Emily Nestor, Ally Canosa, Jennifer Laird, Sophie Dix, Abby Ex, Emma de Caunes, Lauren O'Connor, Lucia Evans, Karen McDougal ("Playmate"), Mimi Haleyi, Melissa Lonner, and Brooke Nevils. They didn't want their names to be known, for fear of reprisal (from Weinstein, from Trump, from Lauer/NBC), for they do not have the safety of their own independent brand to sustain them. They open themselves up to attack, and their courage in coming forward makes them the true, unsung heroes of the story. 

Gwyneth Paltrow does not appear. Neither does Christine Blasey-Ford. Certainly, they are two of the most compelling characters in She Said. Paltrow is irrelevant to the story (Donna Gigliotti, a producer on Shakespeare in Love, fulfills her function to a degree). Perhaps references to her ambivalent relationship with Weinstein--how she denounces him, while conceding that she owes her success to him--are unnecessary. And she played no role in his story, just as he played no role in Christine Blasey-Ford's story. Yet their presence in She Said lend gravitas to that narrative in the same way that Farrow's own history and personality elevate this one.

Black Cube, the shadowy private-intelligence firm hired by Weinstein to investigate Farrow's sources, and Farrow himself, is also dissected in an amusing subplot, with the two men, Ostrovskiy and Khaykin, assigned to his case. They serve as comic relief, while the question of their moral ambiguity hangs in the balance. They are sinister, and yet they are not. 

Despite the dangers he faces and the paranoia that takes a mental toll, Farrow lives a rather fabulous life, and one may become almost envious of the difficult situation in which he finds himself. For example, he is forced to stay with his friend Sophie, the daughter of a wealthy executive, in her "safe house": "a section of a building in Chelsea where Sophie's family owned several floors. It was a space to comfortably house everyone you've ever met. The rooms were proportioned like airplane hangars--imposing and beautiful and full of ornate couches you'd be afraid to sit on and objets d'art you'd be afraid to touch." (257-258) If only we could all have such a friend and place to stay in dangerous times, life might seem better. Farrow does receive vague death threats on Instagram, and though his life may actually be in danger, the situation does seem rather exciting and fun. Some might not want to trade places with him, yet he really seemed to be living out his own adventure-thriller movie plot, and one must admit it would be a good part to get to play. Farrow was brave, make no mistake, but he was also lucky to have the opportunity.

He has certainly lived a storied life, and while at various points others bring up his "conflict of interest," skeptical of the HW story due to his own personal history, his relationship with his sister Dylan is beautifully interwoven into the narrative. Their brief moments together, on the phone or in the past, veer from emotionally devastating to heartwarming:

"I looked at him like he was crazy for a moment and then asked, 'Noah, is this story dead or not?' He looked at the script again. Over his shoulder, I saw the deco architecture of historic Rockefeller Plaza. 

I thought of my sister. Five years earlier, she'd first told the family she wanted to revive her allegation of sexual assault against Woody Allen. We'd stood in the TV room at our home in Connecticut, with stacks of fading VHS tapes.

'I don't see why you can't just move on,' I told her.

'You had that choice!' she said. 'I didn't!'

'We have all spent decades trying to put this thing behind us. I'm just now trying to launch something serious where people focus on the work. And you want to--want to reset the clock completely.'

'This isn't about you,' she said. 'Don't you see that?'

'No, it's about you. You're smart. You're talented, you have so many other things you can do,' I said.

'But I can't. Because it's always there,' she said, and then she was crying.

'You do not need to do this. And you are ruining your life if you do.'

'Fuck you,' she said.

'I support you. But you just--you have to stop.'" (190)

His relationship with his father, Woody Allen, is heartbreaking in another way entirely. This is perhaps best left unexplored in this review, and saved for Apropos of Nothing. Farrow does not play into the rumor that Allen is not actually his biological father, yet they clearly have no relationship, and it does not appear that either wishes to have a relationship:

"Weinstein seemed to want a strategic playbook--for quashing sexual assault allegations, and for dealing with me. 'How did you deal with this?' Weinstein asked at one point.  He wanted to know if Allen would intercede on his behalf. Allen shut down the idea. But he did have knowledge that Weinstein would later put to use. That week, Weinstein's credit card receipts show his purchase of a book of interviews with Allen, written by a die-hard fan of his, documenting all of the arguments Allen and his army of private investigators and publicists had come up with to smear the credibility of my sister, the district attorney, and a judge who had suggested she was telling the truth.

'Jeez, I'm so sorry,' Allen told Weinstein on the call. 'Good luck.'" (255)

Regardless of your feelings on Farrow, if you are at all interested in journalism or the entertainment industry, this should be required reading. And if you do happen to have an odd feeling of underlying contempt for the work he has done, this will dispel any illusions as to his motives. He absolutely makes the best of his opportunity to be heard, if only one is willing to listen.

Grade: A-