Joy in seeing that something outside of the narrative structure we’re familiar with is at play; joy in discovering a different sense of vastness and fluidity. Joy in waiting, patiently, with rich anticipation, for the seemingly disparate pieces of a narrative to mesh, to become something huge and beautiful. Joy in realizing, several chapters into a book, that you could not possibly say what it was “about” until reading to the end, and maybe not even then.
Chef Nathanial Zimet insists on using boquerones in the grilled Caesar salads at his New Orleans restaurant Boucherie. The marinated white Spanish anchovies, he says, are far superior to the salt-cured kind. Romaine spears, he adds, are immune to wilting over flame.
“It’s almost like it locks in the crunch of it,” he says, as the vivid green leaves curl and darken during a quick sear. He arranges the lettuce on a plate, drizzles it with dressing (lemon, garlic, Worcestershire and Tabasco) then generously scatters chunky basil croutons and craggy Parmesan shavings on top.
Two monkeys with wings defecate suspending a ballerina whose skull is split. Her tutu reveals thighs from the fifties, toned. Their hands are on her poor wounded head; she has no feet. One of the monkeys, the one on the left, has a badly defined jawline. The woman has a perforated abdomen.
Everything about the way this book is written gives the reader a sense of the closeness in proximity in which all the characters exist, and squeezes you into the space to become another passenger on this dangerous and mysterious journey.