The Activist [Paperback]

Renee Gladman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 15, 2003

Fiction. African American Studies. Straddling fiction and poetry, Renee Gladman's writing operates on the level of the sentence, constructing suprise and oblique meanings at every turn, and somehow managing the supremely difficult trick of both engaging and pushing the reader. "THE ACTIVIST begins in the middle of a revolution....There is a bridge that may or may not have been bombed. People speak in nonsense and cannot stop themselves. In the mids of all this, the language of news reports mixes with the language of confession. The art of this beautifully written book is in how it touchingly illustrates that relations between humans and cities are linked in a more complex interface than most realize"--Juliana Spahr.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Following up on her 2000 debut Juice (Kelsey Street), Gladman here pushes West Coast "new narrative" further into Kafka- and Poindexter-esque territory. A form of elliptical prose taken up in the '90s by writers like Dodie Bellamy, Mary Burger, Laura Moriarty and Camille Roy (and adapted by Gladman's peers Pamela Lu and Lytle Shaw), new narrative allows the basic elements of novels (plot, character, dialogue, specificity of setting) to run through the text without being sketched all the way in. By turns noirish first-person memoir and journalistic satire, The Activist depicts the goings on of a cell or affinity group that may or may not have blown up a bridge that may or may not have existed. Descriptions are inflected such that the names of characters (Lomarlo, Monique), their relations to each other (often same sex) and the way they talk ("This our downtown"; the title itself may be in the plural) put pressure on categories of race, gender and sexual orientation. The group may also have developed technology for emptying the memories of subjects, and controlling them Matrix-style, and their prevarications have a Godardian intellectualized haplessness. Yet the memory technology sets up the most powerful of the book's 10 sections, "The State," where it is unclear if the first-person narrator is being held by the government or by the activists, for what reason and to what purpose. The book works best as one of the first full-length mirrors held to the post 9/11 U.S.; in its targeting and rhetoric; it is something less than allegorical, more than a little chilling, and often very beautiful.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Renee Gladman lives in Boston, Massachusettes, where she publishes Leon Works, a press for experimental fiction and cross-genre writing. Her books include NEWCOMER CAN'T SWIM (Kelsey Street Press, 2007), A PICTURE-FEELING (Roof Books, 2005), THE ACTIVIST (Krupskaya, 2003), JUICE (Kelsey Street Press, 2000), NOT RIGHT NOW (Second Story Books, 1998), and Arlem (Idiom Books, 1996). A novella Event Factory is forthcoming from Dorothy, a publishing project in fall 2010. She teaches at Brown University in the Program for Literary Arts.

Product Details

• Paperback: 145 pages
• Publisher: Krupskaya (August 15, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 192865018X
• ISBN-13: 978-1928650188
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #802,212 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars SIMPLY delicious writing, January 24, 2004

By 

thepillbugontheleft (subway #F) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Activist (Paperback)

This is so gorgeous of a work!!!

1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Smart, January 30, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: The Activist (Paperback)

This is what it means to be a writer.