The unspeakable : and other subjects of discussion

by Meghan Daum

Paper Book, 2014

Status

Checked out

Genres

Biography & Memoir

Biography

Publication

New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014.

Description

"A master of the personal essay candidly explores love, death, and the counterfeit rituals of American life In her celebrated 2001 collection, My Misspent Youth, Meghan Daum offered a bold, witty, defining account of the artistic ambitions, financial anxieties, and mixed emotions of her generation. The Unspeakable is an equally bold and witty, but also a sadder and wiser, report from early middle age. It's a report tempered by hard times. In "Matricide," Daum unflinchingly describes a parent's death and the uncomfortable emotions it provokes; and in "Diary of a Coma" she relates her own journey to the twilight of the mind. But Daum also operates in a comic register. With perfect precision, she reveals the absurdities of the marriage-industrial complex, of the New Age dating market, and of the peculiar habits of the young and digital. Elsewhere, she writes searchingly about cultural nostalgia, Joni Mitchell, and the alternating heartbreak and liberation of choosing not to have children. Combining the piercing insight of Joan Didion with a warm humor reminiscent of Nora Ephron, Daum dissects our culture's most dangerous illusions, blind spots, and sentimentalities while retaining her own joy and compassion. Through it all, she dramatizes the search for an authentic self in a world where achieving an identity is never simple and never complete"-- "Essays on American sentimentality and its impact on the way we think about death, children, patriotism, and other matters"--… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member benjaminsiegel

I mean not five star like Moby Dick five star but goddamn if there isn't some real pathos and some real howlers. Soft spot for the Joni Mitchell essay slash leitmotif. Also, moms. Also, dogs.

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LibraryThing member msbaba

Call it what you will--creative nonfiction, intimate journalism, literary nonfiction-- Meghan Daum is a talented prose stylist at the top of this genre and “Unspeakable” is an absolute gem.

I don’t often buy books, but this was one of the very few I’ve actually purchased this year. You see,

I’m an Amazon Top Reviewer, so I’m generally swamped with free Advanced Readers Copies that come directly from authors, publishers, publicists, or from Amazon itself. You’d think I had access to all the free books I’d ever want to read--and I do--but occasionally a few very good ones miss my inbox, catch my eye, and I know I just have to buy them and read them for the pure pleasure of it. This collection of essays was a perfect example of that.

I live in Los Angeles, so I’m familiar with Daum as a regular “L.A. Times” columnist.
I love reading her work not only because she writes brilliantly with flashes of humor, but also because she is such a forthright authentic personality. She’s the type of person who tells us what she feels about important things in life not because she seeks a confessional, but because she knows that honesty will help us all to live the frank aboveboard lives we were meant to live. She helps us to feel happy in our own skin and with our own odd “unspeakable” thoughts.

This book is not a saucy confessional. Don’t read it if you’re expecting someone to open up and tell you a bunch of naughty secrets. This is definitely not that type of book. It’s a collection of ten essays about ordinary (and extraordinary) life drawn from the author’s private experience. What we discover is wide-open truth and honesty about personal matters that shape lives. Think of it as an enlightening and often humorous peak inside the unknowable truth of the human condition.

It’s been said that Daum is Generation-X’s version of Joan Didion. While I have no doubt that could, indeed, be true, I’m happy to say that her essays are an intellectual and emotional balm to members of my Baby-Boomer Generation, as well.

Two days ago, when I was still in the middle of reading this enjoyable collection, Slate magazine announced that Daum’s “Unspeakable” made it to their top-10-books-of-the-year list. Now that I’ve finished it, I’m not surprised. It is definitely that good.

If all I’ve said interests you, don’t hesitate to buy it and read it. Based on my own experience, I’m convinced this book will give you a lot of pleasure and make you feel good about yourself and your life. Heck, what more could you want from a book?

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LibraryThing member ccayne

Creative, funny, thought provoking.

LibraryThing member PrimosParadise

A slight book of mostly insightful essays through the singular prism of Daum. I would agree that the first part of the book is stronger with Matricide being my favorite. The dog lover essay seemed unnecessary fluff and I could see how the Honorary Dyke essay would strike many as somewhat offensive,

so much so that I think it used up some of the prior goodwill generated by the earlier essays. But when Daum is on, some of her insights can be both profound and illuminating. After slugging my way through Lena Dunham's recent book, Daum was refreshing in her ability to reach the heart of the subject without making me wince. Well worth the time.

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LibraryThing member mjlivi

After the first essay, on Daum's difficult relationship with her mother and how it played out during her mother's death from cancer, I had this down as a 5-star book. It's sharp, moving, self-critical and beautifully written. There are other excellent essays in the book, but nothing quite lives up

to the gut punch of the first. Still, it's a great book, only partly spoiled by a strangely misguided essay entitled 'honorary dyke', which feels appropriative and poorly thought through. I'm still going to chase down Daum's first book of essays - I was really impressed by a lot of this.

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LibraryThing member reganrule

The Unspeakable falls into that category of book that I do not trust myself to rate because I find Daum's take on the world so utterly relate-able. It is humbling to find out that (what you considered) your particular brand of antisentimentalism is more likely the result of your culturo-historical

context than of your own brilliant particularity. Funny, sharp & occasionally tender; recommended especially to what Daum calls "phantom dykes," the hetero-women who resist pop-culture's idea of the "feminine," and instead venture to forge their own "authentic" identities. I don't exactly know what authenticity means to Daum, but it seems close to Maggie Nelson's "sodomitic mother," i.e. a woman who always exceeds/overflows her societally structured roles.

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LibraryThing member susandennis

I am extremely picky about my books of essays. I like very few. I LOVED this one. I read them sporadically over the course of about a month. Sometimes I wouldn't even read a whole one at once. And yet, the thoughts and ideas and concepts not only stuck with me, but REALLY stuck with me. I ended up

writing about a couple of her topics on my own online journal. This was really a very excellent read.

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LibraryThing member CarrieWuj

3.5 stars -- I just can't commit to whole numbers! This book of essays is very well-written, but I would be lying if the subject matter didn't rub me the wrong way on occasion. In one (less enchanting) essay about Joni Mitchell, Daum credits her with teaching "that if you didn't 'write from a place

of excruciating candor, you've written nothing." Daum does just that. Some of her confessions are painfully honest, especially her reasons for not wanting children, and her involvement in and understanding of the foster care system. She does warn readers in her intro that "this book recounts some pretty unflattering behavior" and in that regard it is refreshing. She is not afraid to tackle tough topics (mother-daughter relationships, marriage) with honesty and candor. And she is good at letting the reader in on the joke. None of it is meant to be self-aggrandizing or preachy. Instead she is just sharing some observations and experiences and widening the reader's world view (micro-view, in some instances) just a little. Best of the lot was "On Not Being a Foodie" and "Diary of a Coma."

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LibraryThing member et.carole

I became acquainted with Meghan Daum's work when she read at a 2016 Writers' Conference, a section from her essay "Invisible City," a very self-reflective piece on living in LA and the literary acquaintances she met there, including a rather entertaining if densely name-dropping starstruck

anecdote. This piece is Daum at her best--a charming wit that can tell of the elite literary world without feeling exclusive. Unfortunately, this world as source of her content makes her stunningly ignorant in other essays and areas, as in "On Not Being a Foodie," where she is apparently unaware of the existence of those of other social classes and persuasions than her foodie friends, and "Honorary Dyke," which is at once offensive, an appropriation of queer culture, and thoroughly reinforcing the gender binary by means of Daum's insistence that she is an outlier from it.
Her perspectives are interesting and her craft smooth and well-managed, but her insistence on projecting her specific experience to the universal ultimately outweighs her skill.

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LibraryThing member burritapal

Not really my kind of book. Of course I didn't read the chapter "honorary dike" that's just too pretentious. She is very privileged. An "animal lover" who, of course, eats animals.

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