The Unspeakable

August 25, 2014
Daum’s second essay collection is an engaging but uneven follow-up to her acclaimed 2001 debut, My Misspent Youth. “What I was in it for, what I was about, was the fieldwork aspect,” she writes in “The Best Possible Experience,” a lighthearted essay about dating and marriage. Daum brings this anthropological lens to all of her essays, often weaving social critique into personal narrative. In “Difference Maker,” she describes volunteering with the juvenile court system, leading to the revelation that “children who wind up in foster aren’t just in a different neighborhood. They inhabit a world so dark it may as well exist outside of our solar system.” Daum is a smart and candid writer, but the collection’s title promises a kind of deviance that she never quite delivers. “The Joni Mitchell Problem” details her embarrassing love for Joni Mitchell and a dinner they had together; “Honorary Dyke” examines the author’s skin-deep identification with lesbian culture; and “The Dog Exception” makes one wonder whether the world needs any more writing about pets. But in “Matricide,” a frank and affecting account of her mother’s death, Daum proves that she can wrestle with ghosts. “In the history of the world, a whole story has never been told,” she writes. But that shouldn’t stop her from trying.

October 15, 2014
A Los Angeles Times columnist unflinchingly probes some of her life's themes-"death, dogs, romance, children, lack of children [and] Joni Mitchell"-to find respite from "sentimentality and its discontents."In this collection of 10 essays, Daum (Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived in that House, 2010, etc.) takes a look at her past, not with the goal of exposing past sins, but of exploring "the tension between primal reactions and public decorum." She opens the book and sets the tone with "Matricide," a piece about the death of the mother she both loved and hated. Daum neither eulogizes her mother nor seeks false solace in positive memories. Rather, she focuses on the way she packed up her mother's apartment just before she died, thinking "how great it would be if she were hit by, say, the M7 express on Columbus Avenue and killed instantly and painlessly." Daum leavens the discomfort her frankness sometimes provokes with quirkiness and humor. In "The Best Possible Experience," she writes about how, in her youthful quest "to live with authenticity" and "respect the randomness of life," she once dated a man who sought his truths in astrology and believed that he was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. In early middle age and before her happy but childless-by-choice marriage, Daum became what, in another essay, she calls an "honorary dyke"-a short-haired woman who owned a dog that was "effectively [her] boyfriend," drove a Subaru station wagon and was often taken for a lesbian. In another piece, she considers her obsession with Joni Mitchell, a singer whom many perceive as the "mouthpiece for romance-crazed girls everywhere" but whom Daum sees as "the ultimate antiromantic" and a kind of emotional kindred spirit. Sharp, witty and illuminating, Daum's essays offer refreshing insight into the complexities of living an examined life in a world hostile to the multifaceted face of truth. An honest and humorously edgy collection.

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November 15, 2014

Daum (My Misspent Youth) opens this collection of personal essays with the scene at her mother's deathbed and confesses that she wishes her mother would hurry up and die, setting the honest tone for the pieces that follow. The author proceeds to examine her attitudes about children, dogs, food, lesbianism, Joni Mitchell, etc., often expressing offbeat views counter to those of her friends--she prefers animals to children and devotes one essay to over-the-top love for her dog, Rex, while feeling relieved after having a miscarriage. Daum's fearlessness is to be admired, as is her writing ability. She's a skilled stylist who leavens serious topics with a smidgen of humor, such as attributing her dislike of food preparation to an overall laziness that arises from deep insecurities about not being able to master math, Middle English, and team sports. In the closing essay, the author recounts her close brush with death from a flea-borne bacterial infection with amazing detail and insight, bookending her memoir with her mother's and her medical experiences. VERDICT This book will appeal to memoir enthusiasts seeking an insightful reading experience that will entertain as well as challenge.--Nancy R. Ives, State Univ. of New York at Geneseo

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