Molly
Ratings4
Average rating3.4
A gripping, unforgettable memoir from one of the best, most original writers of the 21st century. Blake Butler has changed the world of language with his mind-melting literary thrillers, and now he brings his abilities to bear on the emotional world. "Terrifyingly intense and eerily spiritual ...The best book I’ve read this year." —LOS ANGELES TIMES "A powerfully sad book ... Writers are often praised as 'fearless,' but Butler is not. In Molly, he makes fear his companion. That is the only way to write, and to live." —THE NEW YORKER "Shattering ... The result is a brutal yet beautiful look at the ravages of mental illness and the complexities of grief." —PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY “I’m not sure I’ve ever been so totally consumed by any book—the way I was by Molly.” —INTERVIEW "The most immediate feeling of life I've ever had reading a book—a life lived at the desk and out in the world, a life of openness and secrets. "Make art for me," Molly wrote to Blake. "I will read it all." I breathed along with every word." —PATRICIA LOCKWOOD "How to praise a book of such wounded beauty as Blake Butler's phenomenal Molly? The same way one would a life lost early: with love and sincerity and anger and wonder and lithely elegant and observant insights that remind us and inspire us, as Butler precisely does, to live and to love ourselves." —JOHN D'AGATA "Molly is a brilliant and brutal book. Blake Butler fearlessly takes on love and grief and the mysteries of this world and the next." —EMMA CLINE "A dark miracle—actual evidence that what we can never know, what we could never imagine about the one we love, is what binds us to them, beyond death." —MICHAEL W. CLUNE "I was gripped from the start by this memoir's urgent honesty. Blake Butler turned a story that was almost unspeakable into a narrative at once brutal and loving, broken and solid." —CATHERINE LACEY Blake Butler and Molly Brodak instantly connected, fell in love, married and built a life together. Both writers with deep roots in contemporary American literature, their union was an iconic joining of forces between two major and beloved talents. Nearly three years into their marriage, grappling with mental illness and a lifetime of trauma, Molly took her own life. In the days and weeks after Molly’s death, Blake discovered shocking secrets she had held back from the world, fundamentally altering his view of their relationship and who she was. A masterpiece of autobiography, Molly is a riveting journey into the darkest and most unthinkable parts of the human heart, emerging with a hard-won, unsurpassedly beautiful understanding that expands the possibilities of language to comprehend and express true love. Unrelentingly clear, honest and concise, Molly approaches the impossible directly, with a total empathy that has no parallel or precedent. A supremely important work that will be taught, loved, relied on and passed around for years to come, Blake Butler affirms now beyond question his position at the very top rank of writers.
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This book, for me, is an example of why numerical values are not always appropriate for ranking a book. I believe if the last 30 pages were removed, I would rank this book at 4 stars. There is a finality to the words "Molly, I love you forever" that invalidates all that comes after. The writing is mediocre. It could've been better edited, especially in the parts after Molly's suicide. Quotes are misplaced and poorly timed. It's clear Butler is more used to novels driven by plot, as his attempts to approach any poetic language is often awkward. It is really odd that his best worded observations are about Molly and how she feels rather than his own. I've seen some describe this as Butler's autobiography, but it's not really about his life. The book is more about her in many ways rather than himself, but really it is about her as she is seen through his eyes . It is frankly shocking he fails to reflect on this book (much less his life) as he discovers things about her that leave him crumbled. Perhaps his view of his own is not as clear as he thought.If the book was fiction, I would have given this book 5 stars. It perfectly balances the realism of a flawed and unreliable narrator: a dumber, albeit non-parodied Humbert Humbert (no child attraction included in this comparison of course). I would've considered this book a masterpiece in its ability to withhold and make the reader decide the impact of the narrator's actions left unsaid. But the book is real. It is about real people. Molly Brodak did kill herself. She really did that. And her husband is truly the author. So the narrator's flaws are of a real person's flaws. The feeling we get that he is not telling the whole story, is because it is not being told. So I am left questioning if the author's flaws and his inability to reflect on them (and the impact they had on Molly) is a "minus-star" quality. His mistakes, when mentioned, are objective and factual. They happened. But the facts are never paired with an emphatic thought of how they might have affected the namesake of the book who has killed herself. When you cheat on someone that has the self-esteem of dirt, what do you think that does to them? Meanwhile, Molly's mistakes are psychoanalyzed. Her manipulative behavior is a result of her abandoning father. Her deep hatred of herself a result of her uncaring mother. Observations like this are plentiful, but the truth of the matter is Molly is not here to defend herself. A book by her husband should not make her feel like she needs to be defended. I don't want to diminish Butler's feelings about Molly's discovered behavior. Yes, she cheated on him also systematically and consistently. She manipulated his feelings and also emotionally abused him. That's not too far to say. But refusing to acknowledge the relationship as a potentially hazardous one where anger and depression and trauma and substance abuses feed off of each other is irresponsible. And the worst memoir, is a dishonest one.
