Remembering Dermaphoria

Yesterday, or the day before (I have a bad memory and can't keep things like that straight), I finished Dermaphoria--Craig Clevenger's sophomore novel. (His other novel is The Contortionist's Handbook, which I've also read.) It's been compared to a cross between the film Requiem for a Dream and a novel by Cormac McCarthy. Side note: McCarthy just won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his book The Road. I think it's a pretty good comparison.

At first, while reading, I just kept asking myself, "What the Hell is going on here?" I couldn't get a grasp on anything the author was writing. For example, the first paragraph reads, "I panicked and swallowed a handful of fireflies and black widows the inferno had not. Shiny glass teardrops shattered between my teeth while the fireflies popped like Christmas bulbs until I coughed up blood and blue sparks, starting another fire three inches behind my eyes and burning a hole through the floor of memory. A lifetime of days, years, minutes and months, gone, but for a lone scrap, scorched and snagged on a frayed nerve ending and snapping in the breeze:” After reading the book, I get it, but not at first. And even after reading the book, I have to go back to realize that I know now what he was talking about. I could have simply said that the beginning of the book was confusing, but going back, I realized how it all fits together.

I really enjoyed this book, more than his first one, which is also good. I couldn't wait to read more because I HAD to know what was going to happen, but, at the same time, I didn't want to read more because the pages until the end were disappearing. That would mean that there would be no more story to read. I wanted to know, but I didn't want it to end. However, after finishing with the novel, I was strangely satisfied with the story as a whole, even before going back to see all of the things that I missed.

I can't express enough how confusing some of this book was, but it really does fit together. And after a couple of chapters (they're short) I was totally engrossed in the story. It took me a while to actually pick the book up. I had only bought it because I liked his other novel, and I wasn't too interested in reading this story. I don't even remember why I finally decided to read it. It's a very quick read, and the reread, or skimming back over, makes the novel so much better. You’re just like, Oh yeah, I forgot about that, but now I get it. Unless, of course, you have a better memory than I do and get it right away because you never forgot to begin with.

The book is littered with characters such as Jack, the Beanstalk, Manhattan White, Otto, Desiree, The Token Man, and the Glass Stripper. Not to mention the “cockroaches” and “talking” Moose head at the diner.

“The cockroaches tell you that? You shouldn’t listen to them. They’re pissed because I’m a neat freak. I moved into that shit-hole room and swept up the crack pipes and bread crumbs. I killed one of them, so the whole colony’s got it in for me.”

Anyway, the main character, Eric is genuinely smart, but you want to smack him during his drug trips. The clear story line, when he’s sober, is refreshing, but the other parts are fun. One more quotation that I enjoyed, and that I'll leave you with, is:

Everything in the universe is everything else. A man is a killer is a saint is a monkey is a cockroach is a goldfish is a whale, and the Devil is just the angel who asked for More.
Doomed but destined to forever want the closest thing beyond our grasp, we fled the trees, stood on our hind legs and reached with our new hands. We learned to sharpen sticks, then rocks, to scream, then grunt, then speak. We were hardwired for desire, and our wanting drove us to evolve, so we evolved wanting. More food, more fire and more offspring. More gods. Gods for harvest, fire and fertility. One day, one god said No more. No more other gods, no more of More. A million years of More were flushed away, cesspooling nine circles below the earth, a million ears too late. Man’s nature has been set to be unsatisfied.