Elisa A. on Glory B.

a little appreciation from Elisa Albert

These stories have the self-satisfied fierce unflinching ha-ha-ha-oh-I’m-going-to-kill-myself quality of having been written very, very late at night, probably almost dawn.   Glory in all her hilarious bleak alcoholic junkie glory is unsustainable, of course, even if she is a crazy fucking joy to read, so the bulk of the book is like a rough come down, this infinitely challenging detox parallel.  Which is as it should be, yes, sure, no question.  And yet.  That fucked up girl prowling neighborhoods her great-grandfather worked his whole life to get his family out of, well.  If a more luminous shameless wretched delight exists in literature, I haven’t met her.

Anyway, she survives, she recovers, she is worse for the wear, and she endures.  There is actual redemption in this book.  Actual redemption, people!  Come and get it!  Weird redemption.  Redemption so complex and sad it might not even seem much like redemption at all.  But oh-ho, believe it. 

She’s a special one, our Glory B.  A seer.  She’s like the love child of Elliott Smith and Kristin Hersh but brasher, untouchable.  Nick Flynn’s twisted sister.  It’s like Bob Dylan sang to me this morning: “She’s got everything she needs, she’s an artist, she don’t look back.  She’s got everything she needs, she’s an artist, she don’t look back.  She can take the dark out of the nighttime and… paint the daytime black.”  

God, it’s so much more difficult to talk about something I love, something precious and valuable.  Absurdly hard.  Shit I hate, I could go on all day (ask me about obstetrics!).  But awed and inspired, words fail.  Hey, this is the best book ever, seriously, you have to read it, you’ll be so happy, it’s so good, if you care about anything at all just read it we can shake our heads at each other and say nothing, okay?

buy it here