This time of year
Mid-July is such a strange time, isn’t it? This year in particular, sure, what with all the *gestures broadly around at everything* - but in general, too. I live in California, but not in the part that’s famous for preternaturally temperate weather, so it’s hot and I lack motivation to do much of anything. I’ve been drinking a lot of this absolutely magical drink at my local coffee spot to compensate/reward myself for completing even the most basic human functions: it’s a matcha with a bananas foster flavored cream top, and I don’t think it’s possible to do it justice honestly but just look at it!
A little cinnamon on top, the right amount of sweet - giant chef’s kiss.
And look at that, a perfect segue to talk about a book! I read The Compound in approximately six hours and nearly one sitting. It was pitched to me as Love Island meets Lord of the Flies, and I almost cried when I heard about it because look at this note in my Notes app from last year:
(Alexa, play “That Should Be Me.”) Welcome to another episode of “my chronic abandonment of a good idea because I’m too afraid that the actual act of sitting down and trying to work on it could result in a lack of immediate perfection which will then cripple me with self-doubt and imposter syndrome!!”
Anyway, back to the actual book that someone else did write—it’s fantastic. It’s one of those stories that is really eerie and off-putting because it’s our world, just 10% tilted. It’s not high fantasy, or set in the distant past or future; it’s like looking at our own modern culture, just through a photo filter. It’s set in a compound (who could have seen that coming) in the middle of an unnamed desert, with brush fires raging in the distance—visible, but not so close as to cause real alarm, until suddenly it is and you feel completely unprepared, which also seems a fitting metaphor for *gestures around broadly, again.*
It’s told from the perspective of a beautiful (but not too beautiful, as she’s quick to let you know) young woman who awakens in a dark air-conditioned room with no recollection of her arrival, part of the cast for a reality show that, apparently, just follows a group of hot young people who get together, break up, and sometimes complete “tasks” in trade for things they need to play and to live—sometimes a freezer, or food, or enough wood to replace the missing front door, but sometimes just deck chairs or a ping pong table. The juxtaposition of abundance and scarcity, safety and creeping dread, is done so effectively and subtly. The whole setup is brilliant: we’re finding everything out right along with the narrator, and framed only through her unreliable eyes and the lens of her past experience watching the show. There were so many times when I wanted more, more details/backstory/context/explanation, but the success of this novel is ultimately in its refusal to make it easy on the reader. You’re uncomfortable, and a little confused, and starved for more, and that’s the point.
The book is, to me, a commentary on how women sometimes self-subdue in the presence of men, whether unconsciously or for their own purposes; how the world falls apart while the wheels of rampant consumerism turn ever faster; and how, given enough motivation, you can fool yourself into thinking scraps of shit are a substitute for substance.
I really loved it, and have been thinking about it a lot since I finished it. It’s also her debut novel, which caused my envy to start cascading all over again. Someday, if I can remind myself enough times that no one sees the ugly process of writing something worth reading and it’s all about what you choose to share, maybe it’ll be my book some other Substack poster is talking about.
‘Til then, catch me here, enjoying this bananas foster matcha, maybe a little too much.
(One more for good measure - and yes that is my Taylor Swift surprise song piano floral Kindle case, courtesy of the incredible Page the Shop!)
