“ Make sure you die by screaming '' at home our current rage: review

Say what you want from American exceptionalism, but something in which we are really exceptional is to lie. Some lies are small, such as the way we politely say that we are well when we are not. Some are much larger and are perpetuated by our president and his friends. This is, in part, why the anonymous narrator of the first novel by Zee Carlstrom, “be sure to die by screaming,” made a wish of radical honesty. It was more difficult than expected: “What will be the truth In fact Doing is to book your career, eradicate your remaining interpersonal relationships, hit your skull with a baseball bat, and SO free yourself.

“Make sure to die by screaming” follows his non-binary narrator in a few misty days, drunk and rage while they lead from Chicago to a small town in Arkansas, accompanied by their two-week friend, self-proclaimed “Goth Goth” Yivi. In appearance, the narrator goes to Arkansas because their mom asked them to come and help him find their father, who has disappeared again. But their trip to the south is just as much a deliberate self -destruction, an epic flame which is clearly intended for the peak once they arrived at their parents – the disastrous return of the prodigal child.

Readers should always be wary of a narrator who insists that they tell the truth, but I forgot this cardinal rule at the beginning of the novel, too distracted by the other great affirmation of the narrator: they are nothing like their disappeared father. “We share some qualities, of course,” they admit. “But natural things – DNA or something else – that's where our similarities are finishing. I'm really sure of that.” However, the book bubbles with the narrator's rage, which their father had to the shovel; They freely admit that they are angry with many things, including “wars, courts, fascists, economics”. Really, however, the narrator is angry because they cry the death of their best friend and creative partner, they finally obtained the courage to leave their boyfriend in the long term and probably abusive, and they finally understood that they did not go well for a very long time.

We do not know exactly how much time spends during the novel – we know that it is June when it begins and on July 4 at the end – and it is just as difficult for the narrator to follow; They pass the vast majority of the novel to drink, drunk and / or a hangover. The high jinks they do with Yivi are largely what you expect from a white millennium recently dismissed with a flair for drama and nihilist trends: they drink and lead, the display flight from service stations, spend a lot of time bickering.

It's fun to read, for sure, but there is also a pit of botched despair under the alternating tones of the narrator of Glib humor and bubbling rage. Yivi, who asks the narrator several times to stop screaming on him, to stop treating her so badly, is a kind of replacement for the reader – she clearly likes the narrator, who is indeed pleasant, but she is also very aware that they are on the way to reach the bottom and would prefer not to be as well doing them.

The story of the narrator is slowly revealed during the road to Arkansas and this which follows their arrival at their mother's home. But this story is constantly readjusted and reconfigured according to the narrator's state of mind and the different versions they face when they come up against the memories and stories of others. At the start of the book, for example, the narrator admits to being sought for murder; Shortly after, they tell us that they murdered their best friend, Jenny; At the end of the novel, however, the story has changed. Did the narrator lied to us? Not exactly. Above all, they lie to themselves, convinced of everything they feel and think at the moment.

“I start to think that I was put here to say a greater truth. Our truth, ”they say in one of their grandest moments. “To cut the rotten pieces of my purple mind with the occam razor of the best angels of my larger nature. And even if I am 100% positive, this last thought did not make sense, it was certainly true when I thought, and that counts. ” Indeed – the truth, these days, too often prevails over the real truth.

“Make sure to die by screaming” is, on the surface, ideologically coherent, his narrator very clearly on the left and furious against the descent of their parents in the theories of the right-wing conspiracy and the grievance policy. But during the novel, the certainty of the narrator vacillates, and they begin to recognize that, fundamentally, they are angry with all the same things as their father is. The difference is largely which they each chose to blame. Carlstrom wrote a book that feels incredibly in the moment, shaking anger and joy, hope and despair, alienation and the community.

Masad, a critic of books and culture, is the author of the novel “All My Mother's Lovers” and the next novel “Beings”.