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A review by spenkevich
Milk Blood Heat by Dantiel W. Moniz
5.0
‘Love requires a bareness, a certain pliability, and I didn’t thrill at the possibility of being transformed or wiped away.’
A family is a fragile thing, so entwined together yet caught in a tightrope act where one slip can wrench the all lives askew. In her utterly stunning debut collection of short stories, Milk Blood Heat, Dantiel W. Moniz performs her own feat of walking a riveting course of language through topics often difficult and dark while keeping the reader in luminous, rapt attention and emotion. Family dynamics thread through most of these stories, and the ways motherhood and self-searching can affect not only yourself but those around you. A woman miscarries a baby and imagines pieces of infants everywhere, mothers try to reconnect with their daughters or attempt to force their children to reconnect with one another, cousins grow distant and death shakes up all. These are the lives of everyday people in the Florida heat going through everyday tragedies, yet Moniz dissects the heart of each matter and renders their internal struggles so tangible and empathetic. It is also a wonderful look at Black realities written without the white gaze or without racial trauma being the sole purpose, which is something that should be encouraged in the publishing industry. These are stories that cut yet comfort in their disquiet, that look deep into the ties that bind us with others, all done as a beautiful and caring tribute to Black lives trying to get by.
Moniz is a fresh talent with a world of promise. For a debut these stories each feel quite fine tuned and so polished you’ll feel them glow within you. Though tonally there are a few outliers, the collection as a whole shares a common theme of family and examines how it can alter based on what we let into it and what is inevitably expelled because of it. Pregnancy, affairs, grudges, illness and death all find their way to shake up the personal lives of these characters and Moniz positions you inside their struggles in a way that makes you empathetically experience their uncertainties, agonies and even face their mistakes.
These characters all arrive at a moment in flux, trying to hold on to what is stable or normal as life sends a tremor of change, or as a narrator remarks, ‘the kind of quiet that gathers lightning’. Motherhood becomes a defining metric here, with pregnancy or relationship defining being centered around a mothers role in the story. In Necessary Bodies, Billie the narrator wonder ‘if motherhood was always that was--waiting for rest to find you, for parts of yourself to come back together’ after her mother remarks that she can finally sleep with both her daughters together in one place. Billie has recently discovered she is pregnant and unsure if that change from her easy marriage is wanted, or if she is even fit for the role. It isn’t until she can step outside her close relationships and speak openly about it to a distant former acquaintance that she can examine what her feelings truly are. Which speaks to the power of literature, and how it is through stories such as these where we can examine life outside ourselves in order to make sense of the lives we are living.
But motherhood is not always easy, and relationships are often strained. The Heart of Our Enemies follows a mother trying to understand her daughter after her own affair has shattered the family and her daughter’s opinion of her. The story, which ends in a delicious revenge plot on a lecherous high school teacher, finds the daughter realizing ‘it’s her mother’s first time on this earth, too.’ We are all new humans bumping along trying to understand how best to live, making mistakes, hurting ourselves and others; even those who we think are the ones in control are experiencing this as well. Perhaps life is an endless lowgrade imposter syndrome vibe, I've never trusted people who act overly confident anyways.
This collection really thrives on the moments when character’s discover what is beyond their control and how they react to it. ‘This was all it all felt,’ Billie wonders as she sees decisions being made for her, ‘like someone else had made a wish and sunk a penny into the deep of her.’ The Loss of Heaven, one of my favorites, follows an aging man dealing with his wife’s refusal to get chemo when her cancer returns. A proud man stuck in an unproductive image of masculinity, he is unable to confront his own emotions and let them show even when ‘the reality of her smacked into the room.’ His normally flawless demeanor begins to crack, with a montage of arguments with his wife bookended by two different trips to his favorite bar. The first being a cool customer as a perceived favorite by the attractive young bartender (he tips heavily--’all our communal loneliness appreciating into currency’ a similar bartender muses in a later story) and the latter when the drink and his overconfidence get the best of him resulting in a few toxic and embarrassing moments. The title story also deals with the fallout of a situation beyond an adolescent narrator’s control--a shocking and violent moment where the person she felt was the only one who truly understood her is lost forever. Or the mother who hallucinates the unfinished body parts of her miscarried child begins to outwardly react to her step-daughter.
These are uncomfortable yet relatable moments where the characters must assess who they are, what they value, and how to regain stability in an unstable world. When a teenage girl is outcast from her church and thought to be corrupted by the Devil in Tongues, she learns to embrace her alienation and, with help from her brother, remembers that life and youthful troubles are fleeting. This gives her strength to seek the best revenge of living a good life where she can look back on the pastor who called her sinful for having pride and laugh at his toxic upkeep of patriarchy (the story makes comparisons to [b:The Scarlet Letter|12296|The Scarlet Letter|Nathaniel Hawthorne|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1404810944l/12296._SY75_.jpg|4925227] being taught in her lit class which is forgiven for being a bit on-the-nose because it is executed so well).
It is noteworthy that this is a book about Black lives where the white gaze does not seem purpose for the telling of each story. Far too often the whiteness of the publishing industry only deems a Black voice worth publishing if it has something to teach white people. While the lessons on anti-racism or confronting the everyday racism Black lives experience is a valuable and necessary voice, it is nice to see a Black voice with Black character’s given the space to live out everyday struggles where racism isn’t the focus, or where whiteness isn’t somewhere in proximity to the message. Not that this collection avoids racism, it comes up quite frequently in ways that effectively demonstrate how common microaggressions or racism is in every day life such as the white ticket seller at a museum who thanks the white couple but not the two Black friends, or when the white girlfriend in Thicker than Water (which is easily the best in the collection) drops hints to make sure the narrator knows ‘she is an ally.’ Aside from the first and final stories which address race relations head-on at times, the character’s here are given the space for their own personal issues to be heard and valued beyond ones of race trauma, though still a creeping reminder that racism permeates all of everyday life. Publishers, take note.
Dantiel W. Moniz has given an extraordinary collection that really kickstarts 2021 books on a high note. This is a razor sharp collection where the highs are pure bliss and even the lesser stories are worthwhile achievements. The shortest, ‘Exotics’ may be a bit undercooked and less original than it intends, but it still delivers a powerful social punch. It is not easy reading however, and dips deep into darkness at times with many triggers along the way so be warned that issues of rape and violence are commonplace in the pages. It is well worth the journey though. These stories of family dynamics and troubles tugs at the heartstrings and makes us ponder along when a character wonders ‘how much love it takes to hate this much.’
5/5
‘We wrap a sheet around our shoulders and climb into the kitchen cabinet, where we pretend we are unborn, and we have always been together.’
A family is a fragile thing, so entwined together yet caught in a tightrope act where one slip can wrench the all lives askew. In her utterly stunning debut collection of short stories, Milk Blood Heat, Dantiel W. Moniz performs her own feat of walking a riveting course of language through topics often difficult and dark while keeping the reader in luminous, rapt attention and emotion. Family dynamics thread through most of these stories, and the ways motherhood and self-searching can affect not only yourself but those around you. A woman miscarries a baby and imagines pieces of infants everywhere, mothers try to reconnect with their daughters or attempt to force their children to reconnect with one another, cousins grow distant and death shakes up all. These are the lives of everyday people in the Florida heat going through everyday tragedies, yet Moniz dissects the heart of each matter and renders their internal struggles so tangible and empathetic. It is also a wonderful look at Black realities written without the white gaze or without racial trauma being the sole purpose, which is something that should be encouraged in the publishing industry. These are stories that cut yet comfort in their disquiet, that look deep into the ties that bind us with others, all done as a beautiful and caring tribute to Black lives trying to get by.
Moniz is a fresh talent with a world of promise. For a debut these stories each feel quite fine tuned and so polished you’ll feel them glow within you. Though tonally there are a few outliers, the collection as a whole shares a common theme of family and examines how it can alter based on what we let into it and what is inevitably expelled because of it. Pregnancy, affairs, grudges, illness and death all find their way to shake up the personal lives of these characters and Moniz positions you inside their struggles in a way that makes you empathetically experience their uncertainties, agonies and even face their mistakes.
These characters all arrive at a moment in flux, trying to hold on to what is stable or normal as life sends a tremor of change, or as a narrator remarks, ‘the kind of quiet that gathers lightning’. Motherhood becomes a defining metric here, with pregnancy or relationship defining being centered around a mothers role in the story. In Necessary Bodies, Billie the narrator wonder ‘if motherhood was always that was--waiting for rest to find you, for parts of yourself to come back together’ after her mother remarks that she can finally sleep with both her daughters together in one place. Billie has recently discovered she is pregnant and unsure if that change from her easy marriage is wanted, or if she is even fit for the role. It isn’t until she can step outside her close relationships and speak openly about it to a distant former acquaintance that she can examine what her feelings truly are. Which speaks to the power of literature, and how it is through stories such as these where we can examine life outside ourselves in order to make sense of the lives we are living.
But motherhood is not always easy, and relationships are often strained. The Heart of Our Enemies follows a mother trying to understand her daughter after her own affair has shattered the family and her daughter’s opinion of her. The story, which ends in a delicious revenge plot on a lecherous high school teacher, finds the daughter realizing ‘it’s her mother’s first time on this earth, too.’ We are all new humans bumping along trying to understand how best to live, making mistakes, hurting ourselves and others; even those who we think are the ones in control are experiencing this as well. Perhaps life is an endless lowgrade imposter syndrome vibe, I've never trusted people who act overly confident anyways.
This collection really thrives on the moments when character’s discover what is beyond their control and how they react to it. ‘This was all it all felt,’ Billie wonders as she sees decisions being made for her, ‘like someone else had made a wish and sunk a penny into the deep of her.’ The Loss of Heaven, one of my favorites, follows an aging man dealing with his wife’s refusal to get chemo when her cancer returns. A proud man stuck in an unproductive image of masculinity, he is unable to confront his own emotions and let them show even when ‘the reality of her smacked into the room.’ His normally flawless demeanor begins to crack, with a montage of arguments with his wife bookended by two different trips to his favorite bar. The first being a cool customer as a perceived favorite by the attractive young bartender (he tips heavily--’all our communal loneliness appreciating into currency’ a similar bartender muses in a later story) and the latter when the drink and his overconfidence get the best of him resulting in a few toxic and embarrassing moments. The title story also deals with the fallout of a situation beyond an adolescent narrator’s control--a shocking and violent moment where the person she felt was the only one who truly understood her is lost forever. Or the mother who hallucinates the unfinished body parts of her miscarried child begins to outwardly react to her step-daughter.
These are uncomfortable yet relatable moments where the characters must assess who they are, what they value, and how to regain stability in an unstable world. When a teenage girl is outcast from her church and thought to be corrupted by the Devil in Tongues, she learns to embrace her alienation and, with help from her brother, remembers that life and youthful troubles are fleeting. This gives her strength to seek the best revenge of living a good life where she can look back on the pastor who called her sinful for having pride and laugh at his toxic upkeep of patriarchy (the story makes comparisons to [b:The Scarlet Letter|12296|The Scarlet Letter|Nathaniel Hawthorne|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1404810944l/12296._SY75_.jpg|4925227] being taught in her lit class which is forgiven for being a bit on-the-nose because it is executed so well).
‘She was of that special age where she knew both nothing and everything, and no matter where or at whom she looked, she saw her own reflection glimmering back like a skim of oil. She could be anyone, still.’
It is noteworthy that this is a book about Black lives where the white gaze does not seem purpose for the telling of each story. Far too often the whiteness of the publishing industry only deems a Black voice worth publishing if it has something to teach white people. While the lessons on anti-racism or confronting the everyday racism Black lives experience is a valuable and necessary voice, it is nice to see a Black voice with Black character’s given the space to live out everyday struggles where racism isn’t the focus, or where whiteness isn’t somewhere in proximity to the message. Not that this collection avoids racism, it comes up quite frequently in ways that effectively demonstrate how common microaggressions or racism is in every day life such as the white ticket seller at a museum who thanks the white couple but not the two Black friends, or when the white girlfriend in Thicker than Water (which is easily the best in the collection) drops hints to make sure the narrator knows ‘she is an ally.’ Aside from the first and final stories which address race relations head-on at times, the character’s here are given the space for their own personal issues to be heard and valued beyond ones of race trauma, though still a creeping reminder that racism permeates all of everyday life. Publishers, take note.
Dantiel W. Moniz has given an extraordinary collection that really kickstarts 2021 books on a high note. This is a razor sharp collection where the highs are pure bliss and even the lesser stories are worthwhile achievements. The shortest, ‘Exotics’ may be a bit undercooked and less original than it intends, but it still delivers a powerful social punch. It is not easy reading however, and dips deep into darkness at times with many triggers along the way so be warned that issues of rape and violence are commonplace in the pages. It is well worth the journey though. These stories of family dynamics and troubles tugs at the heartstrings and makes us ponder along when a character wonders ‘how much love it takes to hate this much.’
5/5
‘We wrap a sheet around our shoulders and climb into the kitchen cabinet, where we pretend we are unborn, and we have always been together.’