O Fallen Angel Paperback – Box set, January 17, 2017

This book was astounding. It's crammed with ugly clichés (that's the point) and is grammatically subversive. I loved it. It was so very disturbing, because by exposing and exploring the clichés, Kate Zambreno has challenged standard narrative "wisdom" and ironically, I was drawn in to the stereotypical horror of the lives of what Zambreno calls "figures" rather than characters. I think that's the point, she's asking us to look at the "gaze" - our societal gaze, how we reduce and belittle - and other. Ironically, but reducing and reducing the "figures" to their essences, she exposes us as readers too. I couldn't help being drawn into the drama, I couldn't help questioning my assumptions.Such a startling reading experience. I was moved. What a talent! I so look forward to reading more of her wonderful, weird work.

O Fallen Angel is flat-footed attempt at satire full of outdated clichès about middle class values. Worse, it’s written in a cloying poetic prose that grates on the intellect. I found not a single redeeming quality save for its brevity.

The worst book I have ever read . Totally disgusting.

The first work of a whip-smart writer who is, book by book, changing the way writing is understood. You will read in one sitting, both because it is short, but also because it is propulsive and urgent.

I didn't read O FALLEN ANGEL -- I gulped it in one go. Three characters, from the inside out -- a poisonously self-absorbed middle American housewife, her psychically and emotionally poisoned oldest daughter, and a psychotic evangelical derelict -- whose trajectories cinematically and tragically converge.Zambreno's prose is fractured, kinetic, and beset. The writing kept reminding me, more than of anything, of the David Foster Wallace of INFINITE JEST. Like that book, O FALLEN ANGEL is at once heartbreaking and hilarious, snarling and magnanimous. The book's magnanimity comes through its satire, as inhabiting so intricately and precisely the psychology of another, no matter how limited or screwed up or dire, somehow becomes an act of compassion.This is a beautiful, terrible, brilliant firebomb of a book.

Recommend

Not my favourite book from this author. Check out Green Girl for a modern masterpiece. Maybe this one was just slightly over my head. I found the style made it hard to relate to the characters.