Syzygy, Beauty, by T Fleischmann - Review

My friend recently finished Dark Lord of Derkholm.¹ When she gave it back to me, I darted upstairs to fetch Year of the Griffin² for her, and she told me “I don’t think I’ll be able to get to it until the end of the Summer, is that okay?” I pshaw’d³ and told her not to worry, “I almost never reread books.”

 T Fleischmann’s essay Syzygy, Beauty, the second nonfiction book from Sarabande that I’ve reviewed, is a rare exception. In the picture above is one of my favourite quotes, and when I was first making it, it was only going to read "I have been so many places I must be sunlight. Listen, I have been diffused by clouds, by everyone who has touched me."⁴  But when I went back to check I hadn’t messed it up, I read the last bit, and understood the subtlety of being "destined for the earth."⁵ The whole book is like that, every time I thumb through it I learn something new.

"Your boyfriend is an atmosphere, there before
me and remaining to sustain you now."

Half art-critique and half meditative memoir over a series of relationships, Syzygy, Beauty explores art, gender, love, travel, loneliness, and a wide variety of other subjects. Fleischmann’s relationship with the omnipresent but never truly defined "You" feels both intense and ephemeral, the "You" always at arm’s length even in intimate moments, occulted⁶ by their lack of name and their other boyfriend(s) who often seem to eclipse the narrator. Intriguingly, when asked,⁷ Fleischmann said that "You" was not a single person, but an amalgamation of a variety of similar relationships. "If I ever said something bad about 'You', I could always say 'Oh no, that wasn’t you, it was the other one'"

 This hits at the core of why I love this book, and what it represents, the untruthing of the nonfiction genre. It’s easy to assume that nonfiction must succumb to what Esther Wolfe once called "The fetishization of reality" but Syzygy, Beauty deconstructs the ideas of reality and truth. While it may not tell the True-True or the Whole-True,⁸ it still tells truth, possibly more truth than it could tell if bound by reality. Fleischmann, in this book, is blurring the lines of reality and fact, the result being somewhere in-between.

"Keep kissing me, you'll see,
new houses aren't haunted yet."

This works remarkably well with many themes of the novel, whose narrator always seems to be in a state of transience. Between lovers, between city and nature, between boy and girl, the narrator always seems most ⁹ However, while the essay complicates ideas of gender and beauty and place, it never offers real closure. Most pages will open and close with a sentence about, say, Grayson Perry or Louise Bourgeois, juxtaposed with a body of narrative in-between.¹⁰ The reader is presented with ideas and left to make their own meanings, which might be the most nonfictional thing in the world.
happy in the middle, where what all of those things mean can be complicated. “When you held my arms to the bed, I felt like a femme fatale who could swing a hammer…”

A fantastic and emotional read, I've been slow to review it only beacuse I've been throwing it at everyone I know.  I think a lot of people could benefit from this book, especially people encountering this brave new world, that has such non-binary gender ideas in it.

"Even God can't really say what something is without burning stars."

InPrint Festival of First Books 2014

Today was the 9th Annual InPrint Festival of First Books, and I’m so glad I went.  The authors were, as always, absolutely charming and unfalteringly personable.  In the words of T Fleischmann, "Y'all should realize you're really lucky to have this."

Suggested reading: Extremely
Loud and Incredibly Close, 
Proust, Virginia Woolf

Mario Alberto Zambrano¹ read a few cards from Lotería.  Hearing him read is a real treat, as he really lets the voice of Luz, his protagonist, shine through, which makes sense, as it turns out her in-universe writing process mirrors his own process: both drew cards to inspire the next chapter.  He brings out her innocence, making his words feel vulnerable and therefore honest.

"You have to spend a lot of time with this person in your mind, if they don’t respond, be patient.  You have to meet their parents, ask where they came from."

Suggested Reading: The Body,
Times Square Red, TimesSquare Blue 

T Fleischmann gave a reading not from Syzygy, Beauty, but from an upcoming work.²  For having a theme of breaking ice was surprisingly warm and fluid, the narrative exploring things taken away and things left behind. Also, they are the second InPrint Nonfiction writer in a row who told Sarabande “Yeah I have a thing almost done” before rushing to finish it.³ The lesson here is to always say you have something ready.

"People will say 'How dare you change this one little thing?' and, I never think each thing is literally true.  To me, pure truth doesn't exist."

Suggested Reading: Black
Aperture, Heart's Needle

Natalie Shapero’s reading may have been my favourite however.  Her voice while reading from No Object (and some new poems!) snaps and crackles, both charming and acerbic all at once, an interesting contrast to her normally bubbly personality.  In response to an audience question she gave the great advice that a writer shouldn’t worry about filling some sort of quota of gendered characters,  an important thing for writers to remember.⁴ 

"An bird screams out my window like an alarm I have set to inform me that a bird is there."

I want to give a lot of props to Robert Stapleton who filled in for Jodee Stanley⁵ on such short notice and had great advice.  An editor for Booth, my favourite of his advice was “I’m always after the right surprise.”  He doesn’t generally publish things if he knows what’s going to happen, which made sense to me, as I found that my favourite fiction piece from this year’s Broken Plate⁶ was “Kiss” by Terry Savoie which goes to some strange, unexpected places and it’s awesome.

"I get the sense people don’t know what a story is anymore. A story is about arriving at a place where the world is different than it was in the beginning, the old world has evaporated."

There's something invigorating about a reading, not just hearing words come to life from a book but also about being there, being surrounded by other people who love to read and write.  At a reading, you go for the words but stay for the listeners.  Both are vital in that reminding us that the written world is still alive, still growing.

Oh, and before I forget, props to Brittany Means, Kaiti Crittenden and MaloriePalmer for giving great introductions to the authors.