Back in spring, I saw list after list of books to read in lieu of traveling. If you are the sort of person who travels over the summer, the lists sympathized, 2020 was sure to be hard for you. (As if you didn’t have anything more pressing on your mind.) Olga Tokarczuk’s Flights, translated by Jennifer Croft, wasn’t on any of the lists that I saw, which is a shame, really. It’s made entirely out of travelogues, pilgrimages, lectures in something called “travel psychology,” and scenes set in airports. But Flights is filled, too, with a deeper theme for this stationary time—the longing not just for travel, but for immortality through movement, through time or space, accompanied by a fascination with our fellow travelers.
What haunted me, then and for many years, was the active verb in that sentence. My father didn’t have something done to him; he chose to end his life. I never got the chance to know my father, to experience his touch or see his smile. My last name came to symbolize desolation and emptiness, that a significant part of me was missing. No matter how much I wished to escape it, I would always be the daughter of a father who committed suicide. When I discovered in my mid-30s that I could change my surname without being married, I saw an opportunity to jettison what felt like my hurtful, shameful past.
Part memoir, part manifesto, it tackles such thorny issues as anal sex, smear tests, hangovers, teenagers, ageing parents, careers, the tyranny of the to-do list, big bums and the moment when your entire wardrobe seems to turn against you.
Diamond dives deep into a cultural analysis rich with literary, musical, and Hollywood references and examines the historical, social context of suburban sprawl, from post-war Levittowns to the contemporary decline of shopping malls. The Sprawl offers an insightful examination of the type of places the majority of Americans call home.
For you’re oval & thick-peeled, easy
to remove. For you’re seedless & tough