2001 ∙ Don DeLillo ∙ 128 pgs
I can’t really claim to know what the hell is going on here, but for some reason this book made an impression on me. Granted, it’s like walking through a cool mist on a hot, dry day. You know, it refreshes and cools you, raising the hair on your arms, but one block later you’re frying again. It leaves gauzy impressions that you can only see out of the corners of your eyes. I assume that’s the impression DeLillo is going for in this surrealistic ghost story. Nothing is quite clear–everything is smudged around the edges. Yes, I’m being vague on purpose, as there’s no real way to explain this book. Sit down for a couple hours, and you’ll be able to baffle yourself for 125 as well. As far as I can understand, there’s a woman whose husband kills himself. They enjoy what sounds like a particularly boring life. She isn’t his first wife, and they don’t sound particularly happy together, but we spend the rest of the book watching her mope around her house in a trance. As it turns out there’s been a strange, mentally challenged man living in an upstairs bedroom who can only speak in her dead husband’s voice, recounting past events between the two of them. Is he really there? Who knows? Is this woman–the Body Artist–really a strange performance artist who can erase all her bodily attributes and take on the qualities of any background? Sure, why not? I’m not sure I would recommend this book to anyone, but I suppose anything this truly haunting can’t be all bad.
