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A review by julianananana
I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness by Claire Vaye Watkins
3.5
I usually rate books based on how much I thought about the book in between reading, and how much I looked forward to reading it again. This book made me think a lot, but I never quite looked forward to reading it. In fact, reading it was very uncomfortable. It's an unflinching autofiction memoir-novel based on Watkin's real life growing up in poverty surrounded by addiction, the details of which are uncomfortable to look directly at. But, I think, an important and meaningful discomfort to move through and witness.
The book itself is totally weird (in a good way?) -- one narrative takes place in Watkins present day, fleeing from marriage and motherhood for a variety of reasons that largely seem to come down to unresolved PTSD. Another narrative interspersed between chapters of present day are transcriptions of Watkins' mother's letters written between 1968 and 1976 to her cousin, chronically backwards in time. A third narrative, which did not weave through the novel but rather was a quick 20-page detour, was a quick biography of Watkins' father's time in the Manson Family cult. So -- weird! Quickly shifting in a not always easy to follow way, jumping all over the place and raw with so much feeling and desperation and anger on every page.
I'm also taking with me a quote that I keep thinking about, which I think is a real quote from Watkins' real father, said while in remission from cancer (a few months before his early death):
The book itself is totally weird (in a good way?) -- one narrative takes place in Watkins present day, fleeing from marriage and motherhood for a variety of reasons that largely seem to come down to unresolved PTSD. Another narrative interspersed between chapters of present day are transcriptions of Watkins' mother's letters written between 1968 and 1976 to her cousin, chronically backwards in time. A third narrative, which did not weave through the novel but rather was a quick 20-page detour, was a quick biography of Watkins' father's time in the Manson Family cult. So -- weird! Quickly shifting in a not always easy to follow way, jumping all over the place and raw with so much feeling and desperation and anger on every page.
I'm also taking with me a quote that I keep thinking about, which I think is a real quote from Watkins' real father, said while in remission from cancer (a few months before his early death):
"I think I have a really good chance of having a really good life."
That's how I'm trying to feel, too.