February 26, 2021
Pham's memoir is about many things--art and relationships, travel and self-awareness. However, while it touches on a variety of compelling subjects, it does so in a jumbled way that sometimes makes for a chaotic read. The author segues back and forth between her life--including formative travel experiences, her social life, and her education--and a second-person narrative addressing an unnamed romantic partner. Pham writes with a great deal of passion, which is one of the work's strengths. However, the transitions can be jarring and often interrupt the flow of the book. Musings on art run throughout, but again without much structure. There are few narrative clues to guide readers and keep their attention. While individual sections of the book are interesting and memorable, the complete picture isn't as gratifying. VERDICT Though it doesn't always come together as a whole, Pham's work features a promising voice. Readers with a strong interest in the visual arts will likely get the most out of this book, especially where Pham writes about finding meaning in the work of artists like Agnes Martin and James Turrell; and Gen Z and younger millennial readers might find Pham's experiences and relationship dynamics to be particularly relatable.--Sarah Schroeder, Univ. of Washington Bothell
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Starred review from May 3, 2021
Pham reinvents the memoir in a stirring debut that explores the power of language, art, and love. As an Asian American woman who felt alienated early on in her life, she poured herself into studying art and poetry to reconcile her need for closeness. In 11 essays, she interrogates desire in all its forms, beginning with an evocative piece about finding solace in the act of running. She aspires to the “affable stride” of fellow runner and novelist Haruki Murakami, but instead she runs “as if trying to lose my mind.” Throughout, Pham examines the emotionality of other artists’ and writers’ work and lives—from Barthes to Georgia O’Keeffe to Louise Bourgeois—as a way to better understand her own. In “Blue,” she reflects on escaping mental burnout in New Mexico, and remembers the painter Agnes Martin’s flight from New York, after a schizophrenic episode: “Agnes’s voices and visions didn’t inform her art-making process, but... dictated her actions—where to be, what to eat, what to own.” Ever-present, too, is the haunting of past lovers and her own sexuality, captured in prose that’s both beautiful and gutting. “If I could own it... become a woman with agency. It wouldn’t matter if I still hurt. At least I’d be able to describe it.” This is a masterpiece. Agent: Monika Woods, Triangle House Literary.
May 1, 2021
Pham first appears as a stressed-out college student heading out for a run in the dark of night, a fitting start for a memoir-in-essays that tracks a quest for light. Pham is valiantly candid and philosophical about her "displacement" as the American-born daughter of Vietnamese parents, her eating disorder and sexuality, pain and trauma, and racism public, private, and entangled with misogyny. She reports on her work with an anti-violence nonprofit organization as hate crimes rose during the Trump presidency. She evocatively recounts adventurous and transformative sojourns in New Mexico, France, Mexico, and Shanghai, and the anguish of a failed love affair. Pham brings intellectual power, sensuousness, and psychological astuteness to her encounters with art, musing on the emotional resonance of music, her own experiences painting and making photographs, and the lives and work of artists ranging from Agnes Martin to Nan Goldin, Roy DeCarava, and Louise Bourgeois. Steeped in the digital realm, Pham is fascinated by what people post and view and parses comments like poetry. A thrillingly frank and incisive self-portrait of an exceptional young writer coming into her own.
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Starred review from April 1, 2021
In this debut memoir, a writer and artist examines love and all of its complications through the lenses of art, literature, and her own life. In her first full-length work of nonfiction, Pham, an inaugural Yi Dae Up fellowship recipient from the Jack Jones Literary Arts Retreat, thoughtfully collects a series of essays exploring themes of love, beauty, pain, trauma, art, and identity. Over the course of 11 pieces, Pham writes and rewrites her own story using her most honest memories alongside the lives and works of other artists and writers she admires. In "Blue," she uses the writing of Rebecca Solnit, the artwork of Georgia O'Keeffe and Agnes Martin, and the beauty and allure of the American Southwest to narrate her professional burnout. In "Body of Work," Pham interrogates the idea of pain--physical manifestations, potential for beauty, and increasing commodification--by analyzing Nan Goldin's photography, the popularity of Tumblr, her tumultuous relationship with a high school boyfriend, and her subsequent sexual (mis)adventures. "I worry that in writing this down, I'm showing you the ways I made myself abject," she confesses. "But it was useful before, and I've never liked the self-help books where the writer comes across as holier than thou, already healed and already recovered. I want to honor the girl I was, whose pain was real. It's her I write for, too." While each of the essays twists and turns from subject to subject, all of the material serves a purpose. Each curve in the collection leads readers to a fuller, more nuanced understanding of Pham's unique perspective. In a manner reminiscent of contemporaries Leslie Jamison and Jia Tolentino, Pham seamlessly blends the personal and the cultural, the confessional and the critical, the cerebral and the sentimental, to create an exciting and imaginative memoir. A vital playlist that hits all the right notes; readers will reach the end ready to hit repeat.
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