A review by beatrice_k
A Terrible Country by Keith Gessen
5.0
This book is good because it, er, the author, knows that to be alive and thinking and thoughtful is to live in the midst of contradictions. It knows that you can only decide and keep deciding. It doesn't excuse your failures, your liberalism, socialism, your fealty to the cause. The thoughtful, thorough way in which it's written lends itself to the gravitas of the subject, which is the subject of family, community, city, nation, a kind of kingdom, phylum, class, order... It's the same, isn't it? The way we address nature is the way we address all of ourselves. This is such a giant (but only 300 pages or so!) complicated novel about a specific terrible country but all of our terrible countries, kingdoms, phyla, classes, etc.
To quote Nell Zink: “The only up-to-the-minute, topical, relevant, necessary novel of 2018 that never has to mention Trump.”
I'm rambling, but A Terrible Country is so well written and capital-H Honest about what it means to be morally and physically and emotionally good and the impossible *impossible* balance and case for each bit of goodness. Shit is terrible, but shit, man, this book is good. You've got to read it.
To quote Nell Zink: “The only up-to-the-minute, topical, relevant, necessary novel of 2018 that never has to mention Trump.”
I'm rambling, but A Terrible Country is so well written and capital-H Honest about what it means to be morally and physically and emotionally good and the impossible *impossible* balance and case for each bit of goodness. Shit is terrible, but shit, man, this book is good. You've got to read it.