Friday, June 14, 2013

This (Chap) Book Will Change Your Life - Such Phantom by Rachel Hyman.

Maybe it's the alcohol or the lateness of the day. Or possibly watching Before Midnight and feeling so sad about the state of Jesse and Celine's relationship, normal as it may be. Maybe it's not just the state of their relationship, the fights, the frustration of parenting small children, broken families, work, and dashed hopes, but the fact that they are no longer as young as they once were, and neither are we. Possibly it's that we just spoke with the Rachel Hyman for our most recent podcast and she mentioned that we were just across the street from where she and her first love broke-up. But it's impossible to read Such Phantom and not feel what it's like to have a break-up loom over your life, your ex like a ghost, everywhere you are, and every little thing reminding you of them. Of course relationships gone bad are all about little things. The things that are know longer cute. The repetition of being with one person. The quirks you ignore until you cannot bear to do so any more. And how what once felt so solid slowly falls apart, piece by piece, floating away like the very images Hyman populates her work with, fragments of a life now changed.  

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