A review by jenbebookish
Come to Me, by Amy Bloom
1.0
So I guess Amy Bloom is kinda big in the short story world, and evidently I am not really in the know when it comes to short stories/essays because I had never heard of Amy Bloom when I picked this book up. And I now believe I could have carried on perfectly fine living a totally content life never having read anything by her and I wouldn't have been missing anything except maybe one story that's just disturbingly perverse, which is the only reason it ends up standing out at all.
"Sleepwalking" tells the story of a small family that is in the process of dealing with the aftermath of the death of the patriarch of the family. Lion is 19 years old and Julia's stepson, Buster is her son whom Julia had with Lionel, and Julia herself is the wife and only remaining parent for both Buster and Lionel who although he is 19 years old is still in need of parenting. The story starts off on a downer note as they piece together the pieces of what's left of their family and try and find a way to carry on; Julia scrambling to parent her son and step son the best she can while intermittently dealing with the unwanted encroachments of her mother in law into her life and parenting methods, and her own waves of grief that pass over her and threaten to pull her under. Julia trying to help her two children through their grief while handling hers as well. (I guess I will give Julia a little bit of a pass for that, I've never suffered a loss like that of a spouse or boyfriend I would imagine that if I had, I would be living on the edge, constantly in danger of having a break down. That totally helpless grief, that inability to accept the utterly hopeless truth. It would be hard, I will admit, and allowances should be made for behavior that may not be totally in line. But only to a certain extent. Always only to a certain extent) So in the midst of all this awkwardness and tragedy, the story takes a turn for the disturbingly perverse. Lion, her step son who up until this point she has mothered and taken care of, begins to out of the blue make passes at her. Julia who should be totally repulsed and horrified is instead strangely lulled into submission. She does nothing. She has thoughts that tell her she shouldn't be allowing herself to touched that way by HER SON, but the thoughts are way wayyy too quiet for the situation. He actually comes into bed with his step mother and fucks her! Amy Bloom kind of passes over the actual act, mentioning it only briefly, once, in a vague kind of way but the following acts/thoughts clarify and verify what has happened.
It is just totally gross and it weirds me out. And in turn, causes me to feel pretty wary of Amy Bloom and her stories. To me that feels like a taboo subject that should never be breached, and the fact that it IS breached and we as readers are forced to read the eerie, creepy, depraved details is just NOT COOL. I hated every single word of "sleepwalking" and while rest of the stories in the book are nowhere near as disturbing or shocking,( they're all kind of meh to me) I still prefer them to having to delve into a story with an icky subject matter.
I ended up giving this only one star. I guess maybe it deserves more stars than that but I will remind once again that I rate based on personal enjoyment, not on the level of writing overall, etc. I was not pleased with Bloom's stories, for a psycho analyst she should maybe have more insight into the human mind -- but maybe that's exactly the reason for the grossness of sleepwalking, maybe she's drawing from her personal well of experiences! Bottom line, I was not pleased with this book/these stories and am glad it was as short as it was, I wasted less than one reading day on Miss Bloom.
"Sleepwalking" tells the story of a small family that is in the process of dealing with the aftermath of the death of the patriarch of the family. Lion is 19 years old and Julia's stepson, Buster is her son whom Julia had with Lionel, and Julia herself is the wife and only remaining parent for both Buster and Lionel who although he is 19 years old is still in need of parenting. The story starts off on a downer note as they piece together the pieces of what's left of their family and try and find a way to carry on; Julia scrambling to parent her son and step son the best she can while intermittently dealing with the unwanted encroachments of her mother in law into her life and parenting methods, and her own waves of grief that pass over her and threaten to pull her under. Julia trying to help her two children through their grief while handling hers as well. (I guess I will give Julia a little bit of a pass for that, I've never suffered a loss like that of a spouse or boyfriend I would imagine that if I had, I would be living on the edge, constantly in danger of having a break down. That totally helpless grief, that inability to accept the utterly hopeless truth. It would be hard, I will admit, and allowances should be made for behavior that may not be totally in line. But only to a certain extent. Always only to a certain extent) So in the midst of all this awkwardness and tragedy, the story takes a turn for the disturbingly perverse. Lion, her step son who up until this point she has mothered and taken care of, begins to out of the blue make passes at her. Julia who should be totally repulsed and horrified is instead strangely lulled into submission. She does nothing. She has thoughts that tell her she shouldn't be allowing herself to touched that way by HER SON, but the thoughts are way wayyy too quiet for the situation. He actually comes into bed with his step mother and fucks her! Amy Bloom kind of passes over the actual act, mentioning it only briefly, once, in a vague kind of way but the following acts/thoughts clarify and verify what has happened.
It is just totally gross and it weirds me out. And in turn, causes me to feel pretty wary of Amy Bloom and her stories. To me that feels like a taboo subject that should never be breached, and the fact that it IS breached and we as readers are forced to read the eerie, creepy, depraved details is just NOT COOL. I hated every single word of "sleepwalking" and while rest of the stories in the book are nowhere near as disturbing or shocking,( they're all kind of meh to me) I still prefer them to having to delve into a story with an icky subject matter.
I ended up giving this only one star. I guess maybe it deserves more stars than that but I will remind once again that I rate based on personal enjoyment, not on the level of writing overall, etc. I was not pleased with Bloom's stories, for a psycho analyst she should maybe have more insight into the human mind -- but maybe that's exactly the reason for the grossness of sleepwalking, maybe she's drawing from her personal well of experiences! Bottom line, I was not pleased with this book/these stories and am glad it was as short as it was, I wasted less than one reading day on Miss Bloom.