BRING THE HOUSE DOWN, every level of the title's meaning is the truth of the story

BRING THE HOUSE DOWN
CHARLOTTE RUNCIE
Doubleday Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$14.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: A theater critic at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe writes a vicious one-star review of a struggling actress he has a one-night stand with in this sharply funny, feminist tinderbox.

Alex Lyons always has his mind made up by the time the curtain comes down at a performance—the show either deserves a five-star rave or a one-star pan. Anything in between is meaningless. On the opening night of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, he doesn’t deliberate over the rating for Hayley Sinclair’s show, nor does he hesitate when the opportunity presents itself to have a one-night stand with the struggling actress.

Unaware that she’s gone home with the theater critic who’s just written a career-ending review of her, Hayley wakes up at his apartment to see his scathing one-star critique in print on the kitchen table, and she’s not sure which humiliation offends her the most. So she revamps her show into a viral sensation critiquing Alex Lyons himself—entitled son of a famous actress, serial philanderer, and by all accounts a terrible man. Yet Alex remains unapologetic. As his reputation goes up in flames, he insists on telling his unvarnished version of events to his colleague, Sophie. Through her eyes, we see that the deeper she gets pulled into his downfall, the more conflicted she becomes. After all, there are always two sides to every story.

A brilliant Trojan horse of a book about art, power, misogyny, and female rage, Bring the House Down is a searing, insightful, and often hilarious debut that captures the blurred line between reality and performance.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Well, that was fun. Eviscerating, puncturing schadenfreude.

How enormous a thing it must be to face the sum total of your flaws, and find that they were worse than you imagined, and obvious to everyone in the world except you. Maybe, like trying to look at the sun, it wasn’t quite possible yet for Alex to look at the truth about himself without experiencing so much pain that he then immediately had to look away again, dazzled by the brightness of his own cruelty.

See? There's just one problem. It's Hayley's book. Alex whimpers “Haven’t you ever done something you regret? Why am I the only one who has to learn something here?” at one point, though, and it really hit me. No, you're not; but you are the one resisting the lessons. And Hayley's just the one to deliver them. She's decided that his misogynistic takedown of her show is misogynistic for the sake of it; therefore must be resisted and retaliated against. She takes no stock of his points. Self-examination would tell her she has a far more insidious enemy within the gates that poses far more of a threat to her future in the form of her partner Josh.

So I don't think this is a truly good story. It's mean, satisfying fun, though. Flaws and all I laughed where Author Runcie wanted me to, I winced at the pains inflicted and received, and stared in quiet hostility at the enemy within.

A well-spent afternoon of reading.

SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE, ironic choice for Independence Day

SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE]
KURT VONNEGUT
The Dial Press
$15.00 trade paper, available since 1969

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Kurt Vonnegut's absurdist classic Slaughterhouse-Five introduces us to Billy Pilgrim, a man who becomes unstuck in time after he is abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore. In a plot-scrambling display of virtuosity, we follow Pilgrim simultaneously through all phases of his life, concentrating on his (and Vonnegut's) shattering experience as an American prisoner of war who witnesses the firebombing of Dresden.

Don't let the ease of reading fool you - Vonnegut's isn't a conventional, or simple, novel. He writes, "There are almost no characters in this story, and almost no dramatic confrontations, because most of the people in it are so sick, and so much the listless playthings of enormous forces. One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters."

Slaughterhouse-Five is not only Vonnegut's most powerful book, it is also as important as any written since 1945. Like Catch- 22, it fashions the author's experiences in the Second World War into an eloquent and deeply funny plea against butchery in the service of authority. Slaughterhouse-Five boasts the same imagination, humanity, and gleeful appreciation of the absurd found in Vonnegut's other works, but the book's basis in rock-hard, tragic fact gives it a unique poignancy - and humor.

My Review: The Doubleday UK meme, a book a day for July 2014, is the goad I'm using to get through my snit-based unwritten reviews. Today's prompt is to select your very favorite American novel in honor of the Fourth of July. Well! That would take a few zillion hours of internal debate, creation of endless lists, rebellious actions like breaking things down into genre lists, muttering over who counts as American (Teju Cole is, but Henry James isn't: Discuss), etc. etc.

Decision made for me, in this case, by the fact that I'm trying to strong-arm myself into making a dent in the embarrassingly long list of things I've read, re-read, or abandoned since I got all grumpus. And here we are!

If anyone has not read this book, and is under the age of 90 while over the age of 17/senior year of high school, go immediately forth, procure this book, and read it.

Why? Beacuse:

“America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kin Hubbard, 'It ain’t no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be.' It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: 'if you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?' There will also be an American flag no larger than a child’s hand – glued to a lollipop stick and flying from the cash register.

Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say Napoleonic times. Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one another because they do not love themselves.”

That is all.


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