Writing an Inferno
In another, much darker, altogether more tense example, the Eileen character is taught, like a trainee, how to give a hand-job to a regular client at a massage parlour. She realizes she just can’t do it and flees the room. The narrative that concludes with this crisis-episode is built-up-to gradually and indirectly, spliced in between other plotlines, diversions and conversational digressions. This is a key aspect of how Myles’ writing proceeds and succeeds, in swirling narrative patterns where every moment has the potential to return and blossom into another narrative strand, nothing is wasted and everything pregnant with potential and significance.
Colin Herd on Eileen Myles‘ Inferno.
The Party
Young Hilary Stoppard and his pretentious young set contemplated the splenetic corners of art’s responsibilities within a splintered decaying cosmos. Under an ageing Soviet philosopher’s smoke exhalation they gathered in an umbilical circle to soak in each of his puritanical philosophisings: ‘Believe in the rhythmic order of your heartbeat and trust no creation younger than your least favourite aunt or neighbourhood spinster.’ Hilary’s girlfriend, Bunti, corrected her spine with a long natural breath and a complex re-interpretation of Alexander technique. Sigmund, who suffers from total-allergy syndrome, adjusted the valve feeding oxygen into his astronaut suit and wondered if air was in itself a poison more potent than Velcro.
By Alan McCormick & Jonny Voss.