Hot Milk, A Creamy Concoction: a book review
I used to write book reviews. I woke up recently and remembered things I used to do and things that I like. And I’ve been reading a slew of particularly good books, mostly recommendations from the skillful writer and attuned reader, Keti Shea. And my son’s kindergarten teacher (who is also a published author) called me up the other day to tell me that she wrote the most in her life when she was busy. And I remembered, too, how true that is. I wrote my first novel when I was chasing around a toddler and nursing an infant. And I am the opposite of busy. I am applying to jobs, all of which I am either underqualified for or overqualified for, rejected by each one in turn. The people I long for most live too far to meet up for a casual tea or a wine. My sons are with their father half the time. I am the opposite of busy. But words are coming back. And reading is rushing in. And so, book reviews.
My most recent luscious read is Hot Milk by Deborah Levy. It felt like aftersun on my skin and aftersex on my skin and waking up with a dry throat in the middle of a sweltering night. (I have a masochistic sort of love for high summer heat.) It also played the tiniest bit - I mean, the tiniest - with time and that was so delicious, it made me dizzy. I thought it would be one of those books that you lick-lick-lick until the end, finding the soggy bottom of the delectable ice cream cone just so-so. Because how often is an ending actually satisfying? Practically never. But it wasn’t like that. The end stepped off the cliff like a ballerina diver you can’t see, but can perfectly imagine before she hits the rocks at the bottom, never flinching, pure surrender.
I feel things more than I think about them, which tempts me to shy away from any real details or themes. I want to talk about the way books make me feel. Primarily. But there are also things I have to say about this novel. Levy near-perfectly constructed that network of neurons that fires when you are aimless, kicked off track, and wonder if you’ll ever find your bearings. (I am all too familiar with this feeling at the moment.) The main character Sofia has abandoned her thesis in anthropology to care for her mother, who is stricken with an array of mysterious ailments that leave her unable to walk or do almost anything for herself. The two set off for a curious clinic in Southern Spain as a sort of last-ditch effort to cure her.
Everything is strange: the landscape; the locals; the doctors; the marble, dome structure that is the clinic; the way Sofia finds herself behaving. Everything is murky: whether Sofia’s mother Rose is actually sick or not; whether time is moving in a linear fashion; whether Sofia is a reliable narrator. And poured like cream into this swirling soup is a baffling love affair with a tall, formidable German woman called Ingrid who is simultaneously obsessed with Sofia and hell-bent on fucking her up. The characters are exceedingly quirky, but - deftly - never annoyingly so. (I actually think real-life people are also this quirky, but it often reads extreme and turns obnoxious on the page.)
Like I said earlier, I kept bracing myself for the end to be just-fine, something I almost always do when I really like a book. But instead, after the last sentence, I found myself a little stunned, smiling out the blind window of my sitting room and into the dark night, the book laid open to the last page on my chest. It was as smooth and cool as the marble walls and floors of the curious clinic, and it was bold in a way that only applies to complicated love - like that between a mother and a daughter, two people at such close range, it’s impossible for them to actually see each other, or really anything around them.
The book is about lives being buried inside of other lives, the hideousness and beauty of such an arrangement, and the confusion and devastation such proximity inevitably leads to. It was nuanced and crass at the same time, a meal of perfectly balanced sapidity. Keti Shea told me “Deborah Levy is not for everyone.” I had already finished the book when she told me this, curious to hear what I thought about this particular one of her recommendations. At first, I was puzzled. Why? The writing is succulent and rhythmic. And it’s funny. And then I realized, Oh. Because it’s weird. It’s not linear. It’s sometimes unsettling. Not all is explained.
So, in summation, if you’re into sexy, unsettling concoctions that leave you shivering on a hot night, pulling back the curtain on grimy and intricate beauty, I recommend this soup. For me, it hit the spot.
by Brooke Hamilton