No one belongs here more than you. Stories by Miranda July

No one belongs here more than me. That’s what I kept telling myself while staring at the bright and shiny cover. Really, it was shiny. I could just about see my nose in the binding. An appeal to the reader—look I want you to read this book so much that I will show you how much you belong with this book. Except that the one I found was yellow. Actually, this was lucky for Miranda July, because if they only had the pink ones, I probably wouldn’t have picked it up.

You see, when I was about five or six my aunt gave me my first bike, and because it wasn’t new, she wanted to paint it for me—and asked what color I liked. I don’t remember my reasons at the time, but pink was my favorite color. Maybe it was because of the Pink Panther cartoons. Maybe it was because He-Man, when he was Prince Adam, wore a pinkish doublet. Maybe I am just trying to come up with a rationalization now.

Whatever it was, I wanted a pink bike. In fact, I would have been even happier with a pink room. My aunt told me “boys don’t like pink,” which I didn’t understand, but took as some innate inferiority within myself. Eventually, we settled on a red and white bike and a green room. Ever since, I have been avoiding the color pink as recompense for my deep social faults. You won’t trick me again, pink!

But I am getting ahead of myself—I am the sneaky very last guest blogger that waited until everyone else posted to take over. And now I have. My name is Brent, and I went to school with the BookFox, before graduating in May. Mostly, I write short stories. My blog can be found here. I will also be launching a very cool literary podcast in August, which I will formally announce later, as BookFox permits.

Before I left you for my two tangents, I was auditioning Miranda July in the bookstore. I was auditioning her in Border’s for 20% off. The 20% off was key, because I am on a strict, post-graduate studies budget. I had heard July’s name mentioned several times before—once, here on BookFox, and once in the New Yorker. In fact, July had two pieces in the summer fiction issue, getting more play than the other they’re-so-hot-right-now writers in the issue, like Dave Eggers, Edwidge Danticat, Gary Shteyngart, Jeffrey Eugenides, and Charles D’Ambrosio. Also, the month was July, which had to help.

Her success is quite remarkable, given that she is essentially a beginning writer. However, this is a little misleading, since she previously made a name for herself as a filmmaker and performance artist. July’s directorial debut, Me and You and Everyone We Know, made an indie splash at Sundance in 2005, winning the jury prize. So this collection is, in some ways, building from that success. The first story that I read, “The Swim Team,” won me over, and I bought the book at Borders. The piece was only six pages, a length that July handles extremely well. It characterizes the best of the collection: intimate, sharing a secret withheld from everyone but the reader, and immediate, written in simple language that somehow emphasizes every moment. Raymond Carver is the absolute standard of everyday diction that feels fresh and significant (e.g. “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love”). July is good at this too, and her imagery is often striking, as in “The Shared Patio,” where the narrator falls asleep while leaning on her neighbor, who has just had an epileptic seizure, or in “The Birthmark,” where a woman has a birthmark from her face removed, but begins to question her new identity. Her metaphors are well-crafted and beautiful and she writes amazing short shorts.

Sometimes, however, when she removes herself from the brilliant discoveries in everyday life and becomes more abstract, her language feels forced, (“This Person,” “Making Love in 2003”), as if she is trying too hard to make sacred mounds out of what are, in fact, molehills. In reading this collection, I had a similar reaction as when I watched her film—that her characters, rendered beautifully through striking images, fall too easily, and perhaps without just cause, into the role of passive victim. In “The Boy from Lam Kien,” the narrator observes, “I was getting depressed and this was my own fault.” This phrase describes the vast majority of July’s characters—unable to enjoy life, because they are “rushing” through it and “are never satisfied” with what they have (“The Man on the Stairs”). I almost wished that her characters, even for a moment, could slow down enough to enjoy something, to be genuinely happy. At the end I wanted to shout, “it doesn’t have to be this way.” But I didn’t. I just closed the book.

The website for the book is also interactive and pretty cool, you should check it out. I also think you should know that July is not her given name, but since everyone loves the summer, perhaps people are more likely to love her. I am now considering changing my name to Brent Saturday.