I gave up about halfway through Which Brings Me to You with a mixture of boredom and annoyance. The setup is kind of flimsy and awkward and the actual letters themselves are pretty whiny and predictable. (And honestly. Unless you’re Bram fucking Stoker, what are you doing writing an epistolatory novel anyway.)

Partly it’s hard to believe anyone would remember such minute details about so many different relationships so long after they’re over. Partly it’s too heavy on the posturing, reliably unreliable. But the relationships themselves, too, all seem to follow the same pattern, and once you pick up on it it’s hard to care what happens next.

The other thing: It’s the only novel I’ve read in a very long time that allowed me to be conscious of the fact that it’s a novel while I’m reading it. It’s not a story you get caught up in, it’s not something that surprised or even angered me.

Of course I’m biased. Partly I’m disapointed because I remember My Life in Heavy Metal being amazing. Also the level of detail just reminded me how little of the same I’ve managed to retain myself, and partly forced me to consider the parallels (real or imaginary) between WBMTY and what I’m doing here. The difference, I think, is I’m mostly just trying to answer the question, what does literature really have to do with my life? What can it offer me, and what can I offer it? (That, and I’m not getting paid/famous off this crap.)

And speaking of offerings. Blaise had been showing me his drawings so a couple of weeks ago I showed him my stories. Trippy, I think he said. He found a small book I was making for a friend in NY. Through a fortunate overlap of a misunderstanding of my intentions, and the fact that such is his natural state, he sketched a few things on the front and back covers and along the margins. So this is how zines get started. Or at least that’s how this one did.