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Ron Charles's Reviews > Crush
Crush
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Early in Ada Calhoun’s debut novel, “Crush,� the narrator asks, “Why were so many tales about women’s sexuality so depressing?�
Even if you can’t still taste the arsenic on Madame Bovary’s lips, you know she’s right.
Women may � for the moment � be allowed to vote, own property and wear pants, but how they pursue and experience erotic pleasure remains more closely supervised than the purification of uranium. Of course, they’re free to step outside the confines of monogamy whenever they want, so long as they keep walking toward the waves.
In several nonfiction books, including “Wedding Toasts I’ll Never Give� and “Why We Can’t Sleep,� Calhoun has been a reliable source of wit and insight on the way women respond to intimate and economic pressures. Now, her first work of fiction is not so much a revolution as a turn of that screw. “Crush� is the story of a middle-aged woman � vaguely Calhoun-shaped � who struggles to balance the demands of career, marriage and motherhood with the disruptive desire for passion.
A more cavalier critic might declare this a genuine trend: “Crush� makes a chummy companion to Miranda July’s “All Fours,� which was a finalist for a National Book Award last fall. Both novels feel tantalizingly autobiographical and subordinate storytelling to a wry critique of the sexual confines of marriage. What’s more, both novelists have developed voices that borrow from the confessional techniques of performers like Tig Notaro and Hannah Gadsby. Calhoun’s book, despite its enthusiasm for literary quotations, feels distinctly verbal � like an audiobook on paper.
The narrator of “Crush� introduces herself by assuring us that she learned her lesson early when she was called “a slut� in middle school. “The social retribution for having succumbed to lust,� she says, “taught me one of the highest-stakes lessons of womanhood: Desire must be....
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
Even if you can’t still taste the arsenic on Madame Bovary’s lips, you know she’s right.
Women may � for the moment � be allowed to vote, own property and wear pants, but how they pursue and experience erotic pleasure remains more closely supervised than the purification of uranium. Of course, they’re free to step outside the confines of monogamy whenever they want, so long as they keep walking toward the waves.
In several nonfiction books, including “Wedding Toasts I’ll Never Give� and “Why We Can’t Sleep,� Calhoun has been a reliable source of wit and insight on the way women respond to intimate and economic pressures. Now, her first work of fiction is not so much a revolution as a turn of that screw. “Crush� is the story of a middle-aged woman � vaguely Calhoun-shaped � who struggles to balance the demands of career, marriage and motherhood with the disruptive desire for passion.
A more cavalier critic might declare this a genuine trend: “Crush� makes a chummy companion to Miranda July’s “All Fours,� which was a finalist for a National Book Award last fall. Both novels feel tantalizingly autobiographical and subordinate storytelling to a wry critique of the sexual confines of marriage. What’s more, both novelists have developed voices that borrow from the confessional techniques of performers like Tig Notaro and Hannah Gadsby. Calhoun’s book, despite its enthusiasm for literary quotations, feels distinctly verbal � like an audiobook on paper.
The narrator of “Crush� introduces herself by assuring us that she learned her lesson early when she was called “a slut� in middle school. “The social retribution for having succumbed to lust,� she says, “taught me one of the highest-stakes lessons of womanhood: Desire must be....
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
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Reading Progress
January 25, 2025
–
Started Reading
January 25, 2025
– Shelved
February 11, 2025
–
Finished Reading
