An anthology of true stories about sex, edited by Melissa Gira Grant and Meaghan O’Connell.
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“got my copy a week after my break-up. been reading it slowly since, beginning to end and vice versa. it was made for break up service, coming & crying. better than a rebound fuck. a wonderful side-effect.”
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I just noticed my edition of Coming & Crying is number 156 out of 651.
I got the palindrome edition.
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Coming and Crying
I actually finished this the weekend I got it, because I got so excited that I had a numbered copy and its kind of like getting an autographed book, but I finished, then kept reading what people said about it on the blog (omg its such a weird feeling. like a bookclub but one-way. like stalking a bookclub) and then read it a second time. This is all a weird thing for me to do, but alas, this is a pretty weird book.
I mean, I have a numbered copy for crying out loud (356/651), which means that I was a backer, and my little donation financed this book. I made it happen. Well, loads of people made it happen. I feel close to the book and the editors and the contributors and the writers in a way that I feel close to reality TV stars, because I watched this book come into being, and in the few months that I started my last quarter at business school, got a part-time job, got another job at the god awful mall, thankfully quit that mall job, got a MBA, still only have a part-time job with no full-time opportunity in sight, this book got some contributors, got edited, got printed, and arrived at my doorstep. An internet idea became a REAL book in like six months. WTF. How is this not weird and totally amazing.
The book is also weird because it is so honest even though it’s the INTERNET. The internet, to me, is a place that a lot of people come to so that they can remain anonymous but say shit and have their words go out there without being held accountable. Well, at least that’s why I probably have a blog, with a reading population of one, because of this passive-aggressive, bi-polar desire to want to say something without people knowing and yet publish it on the world-wide web. But so many people now have these words attached to a full name and a picture, just a google search away from people finding out, and yet they’re just as raw about it as I get when I bitch about my daddy issues and my all around fuckedupness. It kind of makes you think, just maybe, we can potentially be more honest if the internet can spill hearts and make you cry.
It’s hard to pinpoint what to say about the book, because the IDEA of the book is in it of itself pretty rad, but the STORIES are just as, if not more. I’ve been calling it “the sex book,” because this is really the only book I’ve ever read that said “pussy” so many times. And I hate that word. It really freaks me out, I guess, in the same way that these stories freak me out. They’re so raw. I think that’s the right adjective. It’s that feeling you get when you’re watching a movie, and you see how a character just made an awful ass of himself in front of people in that all-too-familiar, unfortunate way, and you can’t help but cower a bit, wanting to look away, and you feel your stomach knot up. But the stories in this book are a lot more brave than I am, and they don’t look away from that awkward, messy, disgusting, unlucky, etc. etc. part of life, and instead capture that knot in the stomach into lines that you’re not gonna be able to look away from or forget, like when she tucks her underwear in her leggings, or when she feels naked in the shower for wanting something and asking for it and then feeling like he was embarrassed for her, or when she relives the pain and then writes it and deletes it and thinks about it and feels separated by it and then retells it just to be a part of it.
And then the messy/awful/tragic moment passes, and you were vulnerable, but you survived, and its that heartbreaking honesty that makes you want to cry and laugh and and hope.
(reblogged from the room where I sat and numbered all 651 of the backer books, where there’s absolutely nothing else I could add.)
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gpoyw - reading coming and crying edition
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this is my, “i’m postponing my homework to read this book cover-to-cover right now” face.
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My sister sent this to me today. It is way funnier than it should be.
Also in a perfect world, petsreadingcomingandcrying.tumblr.com would exist and get a book deal.
(I think I just solved publishing?)
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“♫ Getting to knoooow you! Getting to know yourrrr vagiiiii-naaaaa! ♫”
Andreas, to the tune of “Getting to Know You” from The King and I, about the awkwardness of the first time with a new partner, after a conversation we had about Coming and Crying. (via thewordunheard) -
Coming and Crying came today. Their logo is pretty amazing. Look at it and think of the book name.
Now smile because it’s awesome.
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Monday, September 13, 2010
Okay, so the first thing you need to understand is that I don’t really shriek over things.
Like, at all. I think the last time I shrieked about something was when I was 15 seeing Bow Wow in concert. And even then, I’m pretty sure I was hoarse from losing my shit when Marques Houston took of his dirty drawers and threw them into the crowd. ANYWAY.
Today I came home and immediately started bitching to my roommates about how, once again, I’d gotten my syllabus fucked up and thus had the honor of being completely fucking surprised by my story being workshopped today. It’s not that they absolutely hated it (they only hated it a little), it’s just that the EXACT same thing happened to me last semester in my Creative Writing part one class. Anyway, at some point Kim mentioned that I got a package. I asked her what it looked like, assuming she would tell me it was a cylinder/my undertaker poster, but instead she told me it felt like maybe a dvd. Or a book.
Before she can finished the “or something,” I’m in my room, ripping open my package and finding THIS and shrieking like a damn tween at a Bieber concert.
This is my reward for contributing to a project that completely rocked my world over half a year ago. (Remember? ha) I’d thought about the status of getting my reward from time to time, but it was never something I thought about for more than 10 minutes because…you know…these past seven months have kind of sucked. And I wasn’t completely mortified at the thought that I maybe wouldn’t get it because a) shit happens, b) mailing out a shit ton of books to a shit ton of people is probably really hard so if it got lost, it was completely out of their hands/probably wasn’t their fault, and c) I gave them a contribution not only because I wanted a copy, but because I just wanted to (and because I knew that when it came time for my first publication, I’d want contributions too).
ANYWAY IT FINALLY CAME TODAY AND I’M GOING TO READ THE SHIT OUT OF THIS BOOK AND NOT GET ANYTHING DONE TONIGHT LIKE I ORIGINALLY PLANNED TO!
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“In the next few years he would lose the dream job for which he was relocating. His mother would pass away from cancer. He would move back to the city where we met and I still lived. But I wouldn’t find this last part out until looking him up online because writing this made me think of his pretty, full name. I contacted him once, and his response was angry. Why did you abandon me? was essentially what he wanted to know. If I let you back into my life, will you abandon me again? It made me very uncomfortable, and I wrote some angrily awkward response that said, essentially, yes.”
Charlotte Shane, Julian, Coming and Crying
I can’t get enough. I have found a part of my own thoughts in every story that I’ve read. It’s like a bunch of people came together to remind you that your own thoughts and experiences that you think are weird or depressing or “would never happen to anyone but me” are completely untrue. You will learn something from this and you will love it and you will have little half-smiles and laughs every time you read something that reminds you of yourself. And the metaphors and similes are ridiculous. And it really does punch you in the gut every now and then and make you think about finding the writer to cry (or come) with them. Read it. Now.
(via heysean)