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just_one_more_paige's review
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
My 11th Aspen Words 2022 Longlist read. And it was such a short one! Which was an especially stark contrast considering that this was the first one I picked up after The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois, which was the longest by far. This was also a jarring choice due to the content, in the context of the current legislative/judicial situation in the US related to the (likely, but still pending as of this writing) overturning of Roe v Wade. I had no idea that's what this book was about prior to starting it, and though I am not sure it was the best move for my mental stability, I kept reading once I realized that abortion was the primary theme, because seriously it is so short, I figured I could power through.
The unnamed narrator of A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself takes the reader on an intimate journey of a very specific parenting choice made by himself and his wife, the decision to choose to abort their pregnancy after testing shows a high potential for a catastrophic childbirth outcome. What follows is a second pregnancy, a healthy birth, and yet another round of tests and testing and the related trials. The narrator and his wife grapple in their own ways with both the decision they made together to not have a child, and the following decisions about how to handle the health of their second child.
This was a really unique reading experience. Because of the brevity of the novel itself, there is a sort of poetry to the writing, taking us through the narrator and his wife's decision-making considerations and emotional consequences with both depth (as poetry is known for its emotional depth) but with a conciseness of words that is powerful in its complete focus on the considerations at hand. There is very little superfluous or extracurricular development or description, yet I never felt like I was missing out on quality and profundity of emotional exploration. That sparseness of language also added an urgency to the novel, giving it a vibe of crushing, stressful, anxious, looming. There was also an incredible balance of tone, between the absolute intensity and seriousness of the decision to have, or not have, a child and a comedic edge, of dark humor, parental humor (dad jokes, if you will, but with a literary style), and combined dark parental humor.
There was also quite a bit of philosophy in these pages, a sort of scholarly consideration of chance and theory, focused around a thought experiment that unfolds throughout the novel comparing a having baby, or abortion, with Schroedinger’s cat (and similarly witht later testing the specter of the testing itself and the simultaneous knowing and not-knwoing of the results). It was fascinating, a perspective and idea that I had never considered (nor had any reason to put together, conceptually) before.There were threads of coin flipping and chance and fate, both theoretically and lingually, throughout as well. I appreciated both for their theory, though that type of philosophy is not usually a favorite of mine, in literature. I was glad to experience it, and similarly glad that it was in a short work of fiction. I did really like that, for all its brevity, the book really explores the many reasons a woman chooses abortion (or it chooses her, as it were) and the myriad potential reactions to that decision. It felt like a survey of possibility, in the same way that Brown Girls felt like a survey of life choices/realities for brown girls, presented with a solemn "this is how it is" objectivity (so different than how this the choice of abortion is treated IRL, where judgement and shame and guilt from strangers abound, a theme that is also explored thoroughly, through our narrator's personal experiences though others' eyes in his time volunteering at a women's health clinic). I also loved how the author explores the regrets (grief?) of both having the baby and not, abortion and not, to the point that there is, perhaps, no "winning."
I have to say, I had misgivings for at least the first half of the book, if not longer, about the role and feelings of a man being central to this discussion. But, it takes two to make the baby, so it does make some sense to explore the way taking two to decide not to have it would affect both (especially for those whose relationships are, in fact, real partnerships). Plus, I felt much better about it when, as the perspective progressed, as it at times veered into the unaccepting and shaming and savior-ness, the author took the chance to question and call out those unfair reactions (the reactions that are the exact reason arguments are made for those who don't have a female reproductive system to not be allowed to make decisions regarding those who do have one). As it rightly should be questioned. So there was some literary redemption there for me. This is second book about non-neurotypical kids on this longlist, which I think is a representation of our nation's preoccupation with how best to help and support those kids/families, and also maybe partly in condemnation of the lack of acceptance that bears the need for testing and diagnosis in the first place. Interesting focal concept for this year's prize options.
This was an intense little read. I can see why it made the longlist, as a brilliantly communicated, compact look at one of America's most publicly vilified and polarizing, yet most deeply personal and private, decisions. Although it was not a personal favorite of mine, of the longlist specifically or even really more generally, I also have not read too much fiction in which abortion takes such center stage, and is so comprehensively (in a fictional sense, of course) explored. This is a necessary, especially now, discussion, and a choice that very much needs to be humanized, because the demonization of it has and will continue to unnecessarily cost people their lives and mental health, if no changes to the national discourse are made, no more personal bodily autonomy allowed. It was a tough read, in general and in particular right now, and I caution readers to be careful going in, knowing the content, but to also know it's dealt with openly and honestly and mostly objectively.
“Abortion is shameful, because pregnancy is shameful, becuase sex is shameful, because periods are shameful.”
“Do our children turn us into our parents?”
“One of the gifts of fiction, he tells students, is the cover it provides. A story can be 1% true and 99% made up, or 99% true and 1% made up, and the reader won't know the difference, the writer doesn't have to declare. It means he can tell the truth and take the Fifth simultaneously.”
“They’ve so many strangers calling them names, judging them. Not just here - online, on TV, out there. It means something to have another stranger say it’s ok.”
“Asking for sympathy is just another way of asking for permission.”
“All the doors he’s held for women down the years. A tiny gallantry still appreciated by many. Now the gesture makes him think of how he'd told her it was her choice, told her he'd support whatever she wanted. How saying those things was like holding a door. After you. So fucking polite. It's a woman's right - no question - but a part of him thinks that lets men off the hook, spares them something. It was her choice. But if you hold a door open, aren't you ushering someone through it? This way, please... She never liked the term "choice" anyway. Says it smacks of capitalism, the market. Choose a phone, choose an outfit. Like shopping. It's nothing like shopping! It's not a choice, if there’s no other choice.”
“But why shouldn’t they be relieved? This isn't the trauma - this is the trauma averted. Next to an unwanted conception, an unwanted birth, what's an abortion? A dread lifted. Freedom to get on with life. [...] 'Abortion is life changing, sure, but also life not changing. That's the point. That's why people do it. It's something that happens, but also something that doesn’t happen.'”
“If only a mercy killing involved some mercy for the killers.”
“Parents keep secrets from children; children are not supposed to reveal their parents’ secrets.”
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abortion, Child death, Gaslighting, Religious bigotry, and Bullying
Minor: Medical content
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