my body would be the kindest of strangers by fiona helmsley

This is one of the best books I’ve read in a while (or maybe it isn’t, as soon as I’ve scraped some notes together on here, most books pass out of my consciousness as if they were people), and fiona helmsley is another writer I first read about in the exceptional Only Americans Burn In Hell (Jarett Kobek, 20??) – the others being Byron Crawford and Ernest Baker.

This book is a collection of essays and short fiction (and one poem in the afterword, which the title of the collection is from) written by a late Gen Xer American writer, and many (most?) of these pieces had previously appeared online or in anthologies prior to this book’s 2015 publication. I’ve seen lots of presses when seeking poetry or fiction collections maintain a strict percentage as to how much can have been previously published, and I always feels this is reductive and a little annoying. When I find a writer I like, I like being able to have as many possible examples of their work in the same book as possible – surely any writer (unless they’ve totally repudiated the political or social attitudes of their earlier writing !) wants, ultimately, for every line to end up in a book, no? It almost seems to encourage a cessation of submitting writing, no? Because obviously most of the zines and mags and anthologies that publish writers like me don’t pay you – and nor should they – but getting read is the reason most people write, no? I’ve always done my best writing when it occurs with communication with others, when one is surrounded by and in conversation with other people who write, about writing. Like now, for example, I have no friends and no community (i have a lover and a dog and a job, but as I’m not a fucking dull conservative (I’m mentally ill), that is far from what I want and/or need y’know) and all I’m producing is this blog and the occasional poem so depressing that people reading it like squint at the page and start mouthing “are you ok?” before realising it’s not worth their time to ask…

Anyway.

Lots of helmsley’s genuinely fucking excellent writing from this book is available online, and though I – first things first – highly recommend you order a copy of this book, if your book-buying budget is tight (or if you just don’t want to), then I urge you, I implore you, to check out at least one of the below pieces of writing, for the reasons listed below:

‘Captain Save-A-Ho’ available at The Rumpus

This is the best piece of lowkey writing about 9/11 (as in, it’s not in competition with ATTA, which is many things but it’s not low-key, but it definitely does bear comparison with Extremely loud and incredibly close), a piece about a sex worker realising that a regular client she hasn’t heard from for a few months definitely worked in the World Trade Center and definitely hasn’t called since August… In fifteen or so pages, helmsley collects enough humanity and personality – not just in the narrator and the (much older than her) man she memorialises, but also his colleagues who she met and are also likely dead, as well as a colleague of hers who worked the same party-come-orgy where she met the dead men. It’s a fucking phenomenal piece of writing, and worth the price of a book alone.

‘The Whore Box’ – originally published at Human Parts on Medium (link unavailable as I can’t find it)

This is a piece that reminded me of my favourite parts of Infinite Jest, and as much as that sounds like a very very cruel insult, I don’t mean it as one. It’s about a recovered heroin addict working as a counsellor in a halfway house, and it’s another (as almost every piece included here) compassionate, articulate, deeply human piece about insecurities and hope, about growth and change and risk and abuse and danger and effort. It’s the longest piece in my body would be the kindest of strangers (I think) and – as with basically everything here – I could have read another 200 pages of it.

Anyway, it’s a beautiful day and I’m in the park, so I’m going to go read something else rather than type into my phone.

Highly recommended!

Slightly more info via Paragraph Line Books