He Digs A Hole by Danger Slater
My rating: 4/5 cats
marital bed death, bizarro-style:
…let’s talk about the day that Harrison and Tabitha’s genitalia disappeared.
Or maybe disappeared is the wrong word. It was more like they…healed over.
This happened years ago. Before the morning that Tabitha woke up alone. Before Harrison cut off his hands and replaced them with gardening tools. Long before he began to dig.
It wasn’t immediate. A magician didn’t come by and wave his wand like abracadabra and then *poof* both of their bits were suddenly flat-patched. There was no horror in this discovery either. No shrieking morning, after the Sex Organ Bandit absconded away in the night. It was more like…a slow recession. The ebbing of a tide. A mountain eroding. The penis retreating back into the body, the vagina closing itself up like two tectonic plates that had been pushed together. Their genitals receding, until the only thing both of them contained between their legs was just smooth skin, raw and red, like mosquito bites. They hardly even noticed.
what else do you need to know about this book? because on the one hand, yeah—it’s another bizarro book about midlife malaise and dissatisfaction, but it’s also full of fourth-wall breakage, including a scene in which he addresses the very fact that this is another goddamn book about the existential ennui of the white male middle class, but also that it is NOT about that and then there’s the requisite over-the-top imagery and symbolism and holes and worms and bugs and bugs and worms and holes, but danger slater always transcends his own icky-sticky mud puddles, and he is—at heart—a true romantic.
This is going to get gross.
Yes, this is going to get weird.
Because sometimes love is gross and weird.
And sometimes love is tender and soft.
And sometimes love is violent and terrifying.
And sometimes love is all these things, all at once. Especially when the seeds inside your body are flowering and flourishing and looking for a way to push themselves out. Sometimes love is not a thing that comes to you, like a gift from the gods, but something you have to discover, fight for, and earn. Sometimes it hibernates, deep within, and when it finally wakes up, it’s ready to burn hotter than all the stars in the sky combined.
if that ain’t on a valentine’s day card yet, i don’t know what hallmark’s waiting for…
