what purpose did I serve in your life

 

 

 

No Eroteme Tome

what purpose did
i serve in your life
by Marie Calloway
Tyrant Books ISBN: 9780985023584

I’d never heard of this novel when I ordered it and even then, I had to find a cheap, second hand edition because this thing seems almost impossible to get now for a reasonable price, even though it was only first published 8 years ago and apparently “sent shockwaves through the publishing industry”. I found out about it by way of a death. Back in March, a guy I’d never heard of called Giancarlo DiTrapano died, aged 47. It was reported that he’d founded a publishing label called Tyrant Books which, again, I’d never heard of but was reported to handle literature that no other publishing companies wanted to touch. Ahhh... now that did sound up my street. So much so that I had a quick look through the titles his publishing company had handled and saw one which has a very striking and somewhat haunting photograph of the author on the cover... what purpose did I serve in your life by Marie Calloway.

The title had no question mark or upper case lettering... hmm, edgy? Or just pretentious. I wasn’t sure and, after having read this, I’m still not although there is often a healthy disregard for punctuation rules in the book and, although it annoys the heck out of me now (what have I become?) I used to be similar in the way I used to like to set text as a graphic designer in my early days, a quarter of a century or so ago, I can at least empathise with what is, like it or not, a conscious decision.

The thing is though, the book was supposed to account the authors sexual antics in an obscene and frank manner, by all accounts so, I figured that this one might be something to take a look at and can be my one (or who knows, possibly even my starting point) book put out by this publisher.

It arrived in a much larger format than a standard paperback and, it has to be said, does recount almost exclusively the sexual experiences of the writer. It’s not particularly erotic and the acts described within are really not all that shocking, unless you almost really want to be offended with whatever is in here, if it’s out of your comfort zone. I’m not sure why it sent those literary shock waves out though because, it doesn’t really look at anything that other books haven’t already explored, it seemed to me.

That’s not to say it doesn’t have value or points of interest though.

The book is split up in chapters with the first chapter, Portland, Oregon 2008, detailing how the writer lost her virginity (if that’s still a concept of something you can actually lose). It then goes on in chapters which are often tagged in parenthesis in the contents by Marie’s age at the time (either 21 or, in one case, 22) and details her sex work experiences, her sexually hooking up with various literary writers and also fans of her work (a lot of this book was previously published on line in blogs or magazines etc). One of the married writers, who she refers to only as Adrien Brody, was apparently recognisable to anyone who knew him and I believe this is another reason why the book was such a sensation when it came out. Although, why it seems to now be a footnote is something I can’t fathom or find out about yet.

I kind of empathised with the writer fairly early on because, when in London, she makes derogatory comments about the airhead conversations between groups of English schoolgirls and, well, I’m sure this is something we can all sympathise with, yeah? There’s also some nice chapters which are more about the way the text is presented rather than the actual message carried by the words. So big collages of multi-sized fonts on a page bringing scattered sentences and half statements or pictures from her phone with half legible writing covering them or even a presentation of various social media or chat posts.

There’s nothing new about breaking up the page in this manner of course. Even if you think back to the days of Blast magazine over 100 years ago and then forward on from there in various literary assaults, there has been a lot of typographic experimentation going on. However, it’s also not a common phenomena in modern day literature so it’s kinda refreshing or, I don’t know, maybe just relieving that this kind of word presentation is not yet dead. There was one section where I think the writer let herself down a little... not even in that particular section actually but, in a follow up on it.

To explain, one chapter is various black and white, not brilliantly reproduced pictures of the author with various, quite harsh and brutal criticisms of her work written over the tops of them. Quite often they are reversed out text and, occasionally, there will be areas of hard white on the photo but the text is still written in white so it disappears and becomes totally unreadable or even illegible in those areas. Similarly, a few of the photos have black type going over very dark areas to produce the same effect and I love the way that this is presented as both a ‘weight’ of negative criticism but also an erosion of it to express exactly how reductive, redundant and pointless it is. And just what the writer actually thinks of it...

I thought it kind of brave and ‘right on’ that portions of the text were left unreadable but, alas, one of the later chapters actually reproduces the text of those criticisms as is, as part of the main flow of the account so... yeah, it kinda felt like the artist that is Marie Calloway had a sudden worry about just leaving it in that form and went about undoing the wonderful obfuscation of the critical data she’d so boldly introduced in the earlier chapter. Oh well... we all have days where we doubt ourselves, I guess.

Still, this doesn’t detract from the fact that it’s a seemingly authentic account of someone who seems to be a little naive about certain things and somewhat less than confident in certain areas. Which I suspect is a complete fabrication since she’s managed to pursue and win both a publication and divided opinion which, by its existence, places her as someone who is at least thought of as a serious writer. Which is kinda cool.

This book has been called by some as an embodiment of the ‘great American novel’ but, yeah, I’m not so sure and I suspect that the fact it seems to almost have disappeared without trace maybe means it’s not quite got that status... although, having read the dictionary definition of what makes a great American novel, I can kinda see how some people might want to champion this as an example of one, just as I can see how other readers might be terrified if this work earned that reputation. Similarly, I’ve heard it said that this is a book from a strongly feminist viewpoint but, okay so I’m a guy and possibly not in the best position to judge but, it doesn’t seem to be all that feminist and neither does it seem to be whatever the opposite of that term is, to me. It just seems to be an honest account of a young person’s sexual, somewhat masochistic and often narcissistic experiences in the wild and... there’s not a great deal to be said about that.

And there’s not much I can add to that either. what purpose did I serve in your life is a breezy read which takes the reader on a sketchy tour of sexual ideas and writerly musings, written by a person who you possibly feel you need to protect from some of the harsh realities of the world and which, as a work, you may or may not have an affinity with. I really don’t want to judge it as anything other than that because a lot of my expectations of it were merely from the baggage I bring to this myself as a reader and I feel a book like this almost excludes itself from criticism by the phrasing and presentation of its content. Other people can do that and opinion seems divided. I would happily read another book by this gal but, well... there seems to be nothing out there so the one thing I would take away from this would be that this girl needs to write something else and get it published very soon, or people will stop taking notice.