John Currie

You know what I mean? Lying. I can say I hate this book. But I have to get to work either way. I liked this book.

I know it's more design that discourse, but the cover, and the text as introduction had me immediately caught up. Being given the image of the entire text as a question mark both intrigues and oddly misinforms and lies leave questions, but questions themselves cannot be lies. The word, "impish" also has specific internal connotations that I respond to, that implore me.

We find out later how this quote figures into the text and what it implies to the reader, both before and after reading the book.

When I open the book I am given more instruction, more guidance for handling the book, putting it into its own context, "I exaggerate." This small sentence, liberates. I am allowed to view anything that follows as simply the stem of a parsed verb, something that Slater may have done, or been connected to, though now precisely how it may be represented, unclear. By informing me, I can and do accept the parameters she establishes.

Because of this obvious disclosure, much of what I read allowed for divergent yet simultaneous readings. Slater's descriptions of the mother character, for example, get funneled through this criteria she has set. So in one way, I am given an abusive, overbearing parent while also given other "tags" in the text which call into question the validity of the narrative. So what do I do with the mother, or the daughter, is to keep both ideas in mind.

Slater constantly seems to be pushing the reader, seeing how far the reader will go before cashing in so to speak, before refusing to believe just enough of the lie. She does this most, to my reading, by discussing her brain surgery, the separation of the corpus callosum. It has been some years, but I remember something about this and it seemed true, yet the present level of function I am given by LYING leaves a doubt. The type of seizure that would cause a decision to slit the two hemispheres of the brain would, at least to my memory, need to be more severe than what I've been shown in book. But maybe not. It is writing convincing enough so I suspended my doubts and am pulled through the text. It was amusing to hear people tried to verify some of the "facts" given to us. It seems to support the success of the narrative because Slater writes so well, so spins these extremes throughout the text, hedging and prodding the interest of the reader.

Were I to view this text as, "fundamentally" true (if in fact this is or has ever been possible) then I might be upset by the actions the speaker takes, or aspects of the narratives, the facts, that the speaker presents. But by presently these guideposts, the writer allows the story to unfold. I found I was less interested in the specifics but looked for greater meaning, beyond any purely human interest story.

The small, sharp mouth bark of my neighbors dog has stopped, which only means someone is walking the dog for ten minutes before the dog is brought back and alone again for twelve hours. Some food shoved at it. Walked. Left alone. Bark. Bark. Bark. Bark. Bark. What could be worse? Not much, sometimes that's the way it is. Or is it some things, like a barking dog, can be, how can I put it, handled, if you know what I mean? You know what I'm saying. Don't you?