An anthology of true stories about sex, edited by Melissa Gira Grant and Meaghan O’Connell.
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I get reticent whenever I set out to blog about how very glad I am to have read the Coming & Crying anthology, so let me begin by hiding behind four sentences from a Martin Amis novel I started tonight:
Sexual intercourse, I should point out, has two unique characteristics. It is indescribable. And it peoples the world. We shouldn’t find it surprising, then, that it is much on everyone’s mind.
But here’s the thing: Coming & Crying is not a sexy book. Not to me, at least. I’m grateful for that. Quite grateful, actually. Titillation comes cheap these days. Free, really. Look up at a billboard. Turn off your spam filter. There’s no need to pay hardcover prices.
Don’t buy this book because I told you to. It may be all wrong for you. Maybe you’re too young. Maybe you’re offended by sexual frankness. It’s even possible that the range of behavior depicted in the anthology’s true stories will go well past offending you and genuinely trouble you.
As I said, though, I’m glad to have read it. Quite glad.
There’s a depth to it, an authenticity, a vulnerability, a gutsy baring of some of the hungers and hurts that make us human. That’s why I’m reblogging this particular post, with an Australian reader writing about what this book may mean to patients with brain injuries and an American creator writing about how she’s “so glad, so taken aback, so goddamn happy, that sometimes it gets to be like this.”
- David Quigg, 11/15/2010
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Just thought you might like to know by book arrived in Melbourne, Australia today :) I have never made the noise i made when i recognised the packaging on the bench when i got home, i think it was somewhere between a bleet and a cry of surprise semi uncoordinated with a half leap.
I have been waiting so long to hold it that i am finding it difficult to open it to read i just want to look at it and touch it for a while. My housemate has been obsessed with katie west for ever! She will love the photo from her i found inside with her telltale bird markings :) I am training as an occupational therapist specialising in sexual health with patients recovering from an aquired brain injury and this book will take pride of place in my office next year when i graduate. It will be worn, dog eared and dearly loved by many very soon! (i already have a long list of people who want to read it)We know that People put things into the world for many different reasons, some of which you realize are petty or small or just plain unrealistic, some of which you still hope for in faraway, abstract, maybe even never admitted to yourself ways. Some you might just give up on.
But I think this—this actual talking to people, getting an email when they get this thing you’ve helped make in the mail (something that has taken far too long than it should, I might add, and we’re so sorry), just to say how much it means and to thank you for it—I think this might be one of those things you imagine in your heart of hearts but usually forget, something you let go of because that’s not really How Things Work. I am so glad, so taken aback, so goddamn happy, that sometimes it gets to be like this.
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[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
C&C BOOK FACTORY
[SIDE A, TRACK 3]“Love Comes In Spurts,” Richard Hell and the Voidoids
This is where one of our authors (undisclosed) whips around the mic and tell you we could all be that anonymous nerd you never suspected.
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[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
C&C BOOK FACTORY
[SIDE A, TRACK 2]
“Dirty Diana,” Michael JacksonNext in the countdown! This one could only be for Diana Vilibert’s “The Apartment:”
“Man,” he says, shaking his head. “I can’t believe it, I can’t believe it.” He speaks quietly, as if to himself, but I feel his eyes on the side of my face. “Man,” he repeats. “Fucking Michael Jackson. Did you hear he died today?” he asks, directing his monologue at me. I nod. Jack repeats almost everything twice. “I mean, his music, fuck…” he trails off. “I was listening to Billie Jean this morning. This morning! And now he’s dead. Now he’s fucking dead.”
He tells me the story of how he heard the news and I half-listen, nodding when it seems appropriate. When his voice cracks, he shakes his head and apologizes for crying, even though he isn’t. I’m afraid he might start, so I grab his forearm and ask about his tattoos. As he talks, my fingers trace the ink around his wrist. When he asks if I have any Michael Jackson songs on my iPod, I say no, but that I do at my apartment.
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[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Kids, we’re counting down together to what I’ve been calling THE GREAT SELL-OUT, our BOOK PARTY at McNally Jackson, which will celebrate having sold out of the first edition of the book*, and will be on December 9th 2010 at 7pm.
Meaghan and I, along with Audacia Ray, Diana Vilibert, and Matthew Gallaway, will be on hand to read and to discuss what it is to write about sex when you are writing about people who are real, including you.
So to count us down to the party, I’m going to post a song from the (unreleased) C&C Book Factory mixtape, which I made from all of the songs that the writers told Meaghan they were listening to as they wrote. Then we added the songs that we listened to as we edited. And this is one of those.
C&C BOOK FACTORY
[SIDE A, TRACK 1]
“Borderline,” Flaming Lips with Stardeath and White Dwarfs* the gorgeous Kickstarter-produced hardcover, of which a few hundred additional copies made their way to the internet and to McNally Jackson. and to you. this is not the end, but the end of this one.
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We had our monthly Book Club meeting last night to discuss The Corrections. We chatted about the book, drank some hot apple cider, and eventually broke out Jenny’s copy of Coming and Crying and did some impromptu readings.
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Coming and Crying is one of those books that you plan on reading just long enough to doze off for the night and end up sacrificing the next day’s sanity in order to finish. Looking forward to the sequel, Stoning and Boning.
I, too, look forward to that sequel.
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There’s a certain amount of joy to be had in reading Coming & Crying in public places, in a skyscraper’s lobby downtown, on the bus: with my arm warped around the spine all that people looking see is me holding a book with a picture of a woman on one side and a list of names they don’t recognize on the other - no explanation for what it is I’m reading.
It’s completely opposite stark lettering of Frazen’s Freedom or Larsson’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo series- It’s a product that’s already been sold and it’s not out trying to continue to advertise itself; I know what it is, it knows what it is, and that’s all that matters when you’re trying to squeeze 15 minutes of solitude into your day.
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ljm:
This is silly, but I love seeing C&C next to other books. Like, oh look who it is, just a BOOK, hanging out with its book fam, keeping busy being a real book!
