Toxicology

Starred review from November 22, 2010
Hagedorn's fiery latest (after Dogeaters) introduces Mimi Smith, whose notorious first film, Blood Wedding, an art-house gore-fest, garnered critical acclaim. But that was a few years ago, and thoroughly modern Mimi is "suffering from a twenty-first century affliction": she spends her days boozing and blowing through the money that's supposed to be funding her next film; her 14-year-old daughter, Violet, has decided to live with her father; and Mimi's distant cousin Agnes has disappeared after being brought to the U.S. from the Philippines to slave away for a New Jersey family who promised to get her a green card. The story's ignited by the death of Romeo Byron, a Heath Ledger figure, who overdoses in his East Village apartment. His death rattles Mimi enough to make her turn to her crotchety old neighbor, Eleanor Delacroix, the famous queen of "avant-garde lesbian feminist erotic literature," now a heavy drinker and a functioning cokehead, but nevertheless vibrant, megalomaniacal, hateful, and hilarious. As Mimi spirals downward, Eleanor tries to get it together to give a reading, only she can't actually write anything. A razor-sharp, refreshingly unsentimental portrayal of New York artists—selfish, irresponsible, and brilliant—and the evolution of feminism.

January 1, 2011

Hagedorn's fifth (Dream Jungle, 2004, etc.) could be classified as archetypal literary fiction, all post-modern character study rather than a narrative carrying the reader to a happily-ever-after conclusion.

The milieu is the West Village in New York City, and the story opens symbolically with the death of a hot young Hollywood actor. Among the gawkers outside his brownstone is Mimi Smith, a filmmaker with one movie to her credit. Mimi's in limbo, drinking too much, sampling too many drugs, pining for a missing boyfriend. Other characters swirling through Mimi's world include her daughter, Violet, far too young to be skipping school and partying in imitation of her mother. There is also Mimi's brother, Carmelo, a once-reformed druggie and sometime musician, and most provocatively, there is Mimi's downstairs neighbor, the elderly Eleanor Delacroix, a writer of measurable talent mired in grief because of the death of her longtime lover, Yvonne Wilder. There are more deaths to be reckoned with—Mimi and Bobby's parents were assassinated in their native country; their cousin, Agnes, was apparently abused as a sex slave and murdered; and Felix Montoya, a poet, friend and perhaps lover of Delacroix, is dead and buried in Mexico. These lives unfold at fame's periphery, where avant-garde means Mimi earns some notice but little money for her urban horror film, Blood Wedding. Mimi is an interesting literary character, albeit not necessarily sympathetic, at least as it might play in Peoria. Conversely, Delacroix is intriguingly drawn, a lioness in winter, stoked by cocaine and alcohol. Hagedorn writes dialogue without quotation marks, but conversations are easy enough to follow. Well into the book, she marries Mimi's story to Delacroix's with a passive seduction. The novel then morphs into an interview the notoriously publicity-averse Delacroix gives to a literary magazine called The Volga Review.

A peek into a peculiarly alluring world of art, fame and mortality.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

November 15, 2010

Departing from familiar territory (that is, the Philippines), Hagedorn takes us to Manhattan's West Village to visit Mimi Smith, a maker of low-budget slasher films who's struggling with a wild daughter and newly sober brother, and neighbor Eleanor Delacroix, an elderly, gin- and cocaine-addicted writer of erotic fiction. Hagedorn proved she could write with her National Book Award finalist, Dogeaters, and literary types should be intrigued.

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from February 15, 2011
Keenly alert to the mesh of pop culture and life, audacious, multitalented Hagedorn (Dream Jungle, 2003) investigates New Yorks art and film mystique in an edgy, speedy tale that launches with the shocking death of a Heath Ledgerlike actor. Chaos-on-wheels and flat-broke filmmaker Mimi joins the crowd gathering on the street outside his brownstone, tiny video camera in hand. A stylish slasher film earned her some cachet, but shes now desperate. Her dealer-lover has vanished, and shes out of cocaine. Her intractable 14-year-old daughter has left her father to move in with Mimi and her dying dog, and Mimis alcoholic brother, Carmelo, is certain that their cousin Agnes, an illegal immigrant, has been murdered. Time to call on Mimis wealthy, gin-besotted cokehead neighbor across the hall. Eleanor, 80, is a reclusive cult writer infamous for her lesbian erotica. Mourning the death of her lover, Yvonne, a famous painter, she is surprised to be experiencing a modest revival. As angry, foulmouthed, and jittery Mimi runs amok and Eleanor confronts the obdurate facts of old age, Hagedorn flashes back to their traumatic pasts of ostracism and political violence. Out of jump cuts and close-ups, Hagedorn has composed a jazzy, stingingly smart tragicomedy of toxic substances, hate, and delusions; hustle and creativity; obsession and passion.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)