My favourite way to pass the time when I'm on the highway is with a book on tape or CD. I've listened to dozens and dozens of them including Jane Fonda's life story (read by the author), Jayson Blair's fall from grace as the New York Times' most famous plagiarist, and all of the Harry Potter books.
On a recent trip to Chapters I found the taped set of, The Camera My Mother Gave Me, written and read by the author of the acclaimed autobiography, Girl, Interrupted. Angeline Jolie won an Oscar for her role in the Girl, Interrupted film. Susanna Kaysen, the author, has depth and an original way with the language so I thought, The Camera might be a good little story. The back of the case described it as "spare, frank and highly original" and "an extraodinary investigation into the role sex plays in perceptions and our notions of ourselves..." Cool, I thought.
Not cool. Not cool at all. That old cliche about not judging a book by its cover certainly comes into play here.
This is an excruciatingly detailed and intimate story about the author's very painful - shall we say - cat, and her relentless search in the world of medicine to find a cure for that pain. It is basically three entire tapes of her whining about how sore she is in the cat area and how everything that's supposed to make it better, makes it worse. She has a sexually aggressive boyfriend who refuses to believe or understand this chronic pain. She whines constantly and exhaustingly to him, to her friends, to anyone who will listen and the word I'm substituting cat for is repeated so often it starts to sound foreign like a quaint town in Italy or an exotic spice. Because I was on the road when I started the book, I thought I'd hang in and find out how the pain was resolved.
It wasn't. I drove through 6 sides of cassette and when the end came I was left hanging by the still painful cat. It wasn't the least bit insightful. This is an absolutely, truly terrible book which must have been published solely on the strength of Kaysen's success with "Girl". I cannot tell you how depressing and horrible it is to hear that a woman's life is nearly destroyed by her painful cat and then to be left with no resolution! Also, there is no mention of a camera or a Mother in The Camera My Mother Gave Me. It's like calling a cookbook, Things I Left In The Shower. Or making a story titled, My Terribly Painful Cat about a Mom and a camera.
This book actually made me angry. For all I know, Kaysen is still wandering around out there or huddled on the couch under a chenille throw, suffering. There is nothing to learn and nothing to gain from this so-called "memoir". It's just awful. So awful, in fact, that I won't be putting it into my eventual garage sale or donating it to charity. It's going straight into the trash.