Reviews

Afterglow (a Dog Memoir) by Eileen Myles

tracethelight's review

3.0

I really wanted to love this book and it really is beautifully written in parts (I mean, duh - it’s Eileen Myles), but the truth is I had to abandon it. It feels very much like a poet’s memoir. I found myself enjoying gorgeous sentences but not getting much else out of it.

prettywittyandgay's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional funny reflective

4.25

margalitkatz's review

3.0

This book was one of the weirdest books I’ve ever read. It started off as a 5 star book for me until about halfway through, when it completely devolved into incomprehensible passages that felt vaguely theoretical but just didn’t give me enough to hang onto, which was a bummer bc I would have been here for that kind of genre mix and the ideas being explored. Def worth a read if your dog dies, rlly raw and evocative yet brings up interesting points. Maybe just read the first half? Lol idk

specificwonderland's review

3.0

Read it in one day!

toefurky's review

emotional hopeful reflective

4.5

“Okay you can open your eyes. The pitbull is watching the skyline. She’s whispering inside my head. She’s singing to me. One tree, that’s all you need. Shaped like broccoli or cauliflower some rainy day. I’m glad I woke. Maybe I’ll make some coffee. She keeps whispering. One tree. That’s all you need. Start a whole civilization that way. One little piece grows it all. Feel the bump. And her paw holds my finger to the weave. I don’t want to wake up. That’s it, she says. Every part grows from every other part. Feel it. Every tiny leaf on the tree is singing. Can you hear it. Yes. Alright now.”

“Humans were biped dogs. Are we one? I think so. In that tapestry you knew what I meant. It was the crowded room of the cave. The rain comes down and you go outside because you feel it. This is what it is to be a dog. Weather and feeling and knowing. That’s why you let us remain. you love how we walk around smelling things. How we’re always hungry. You love how a dog picks a place on the rug and scratches and circles around and sits down and adjusts. ‘Now I’m in the room.’ And now I look up, and you laugh, why? Because of your deliberate apartness from yourself, and I always bring you back. Do you see what I mean? You wait, and then you sniff. That yellowish tree down there by the lake is waving, you think its not communicating? Not as much as, say, that door down the hall? Slam. Not as much as the rooms?” 

itouchmaeshelf's review

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

meganmilks's review

5.0

4.5! Loved much of this, a lot. The essay on Foam as a concept/metaphor for thinking about knowledge/writing is my favorite, I think, but many of the doggo pieces are glorious and sui generis. Many adopt a style that is a kind of frothy walk / flaneur avec dog; and then there's Rosie (the dog) speaking from the dead, "ghostwriting". Myles is sometimes Jethro here, sometimes she, sometimes he, and Rosie, always, is god. Sometimes the pov rolls back and forth between Eileen and Rosie, and the effect is startling, frustrating, funny -- the playfulness and premise both remind me of Yoko Tawada's Memoirs of a Polar Bear (a novel). These essays (it's really more collection than memoir) move with twitchy buoyancy, spark with a smartalecky glint, all held by, holding this kind of awe at the magnitude of love for this dog, Rosie: "I felt less ambivalently loving than I have ever felt in my life."

phua_jieying's review against another edition

2.0

A good deal of the book is not about dogs. Not quite my cup of tea.

kelroka's review

4.0

Eileen Myles is a poet. Afterglow, like most of her other prose work, perches just on the edge of narrative, sliding frequently into the realm of poetry and metaphor. Though billed as a "Dog Memoir" it is much less straightforward than that. Myles' dog, Rosie, is the fulcrum on which this book swings, but really it explores many larger issues of death and dying, the relationship of humans with dogs, and where we all belong in this world.

Afterglow is exactly what you'd expect from Eileen Myles: Hard, truthful, funny, sad, uncomfortable and beautiful.

I would recommend this book to fans of Myles' work, and folks who don't mind a bit of a literary challenge.

Dog lovers be forewarned: Heart-wrenching dog stuff ahead.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I received an ARC from Grove Press/Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

jmecerretti's review

3.0

this was a pretty challenging book. i'm pretty sure i didn't actually understand about 2/3 of it. i think i need to go get smarter and re-read it. i did get a sense of rosie the dog's personality and the connection between her and her human, Eileen Myles, shines through.