Heti, Sheila. How Should a Person Be? a Novel From Life.New York: Henry Holt & Co, 2012
This is a clever book. Because it is fictional nonfiction nothing has to make sense or be tied to the truth. When other reviewers use words like “candid” and “honest” I don’t know what they are talking about. What’s truth and what’s fantasy is not up to us. Maybe there is a Margeaux and maybe there isn’t. As readers we are just along for the ride and in the end, while I tried to keep that in mind, I found myself asking who the hell cares? If read as a fictionalized memoir it is murky and smudged like a dirty aquarium full of beautiful and exotic fish or a greasy fingerprinted champagne flute filled with the finest bubbly. In other words, gorgeous writing wrapped up in some psychobabble musings. When trying to read this as an existential “who am I?” it was cumbersome and meandering. However, read with an “I Could Care Less” attitude it was sexy and raw and funny and smart. All the things I am looking for in a good book, truthful or not. I wouldn’t want to classify this as self-help, self-indulgent, or self anything.
To play out the main plot is a struggle. When it was all said and done I’m not exactly sure what Heti was going for. A struggling playwright who can’t decide what kind of life she wants? A chance to wax poetic and wane philosophic?
~*LunaSea*~ 