I’ve been dragging my feet over this review, and I contemplated not even posting. But I remembered I posted about How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps her House, and that novel left me, as a reader, with the same sort of feeling as Latoya Watkins’s Perish (Tiny Reparations Books 2022). I’m actually going to recycle part of that review for this one.
I rarely post trigger/content warnings, and I try to avoid reviews with them – that’s my reading preference. You may prefer them. And that’s perfectly acceptable. That said, Perish is one TW/CW after the other: incest, rape, rape of the mentally challenged, child molestation, domestic violence, brutal assaults, animal abuse, murder, suicide, addiction, abortion, torture, etc. This list really could go on and on. Some things are mentioned in passing, others as flashes of memory, and some in great detail. There are multiple instances of rape and abuse, particularly between children and older male family members. This was the rare read that I nearly DNF’d; I didn’t, but I do wish I’d never started it. It was simply too much, too hard, too hopeless. (And the dog dies in this one.)
This story of generational trauma and a family legacy of abuse is heavy on the continued assaults and pain and not so much on breaking the horrid cycles. There is an intense struggle between what family means and whether family has to mean forgiveness or looking the other way or if one can just break free. Despite my issues with the story itself, Watkins has shown herself to be a talented author. She is nonjudgmental and unflinching in her depictions of some pretty horrible shit. The fact I don’t hate any of the characters is a testament to how carefully she’s drawn them and how impactful the writing is. I should hate Alex. I should hate Bacon. Very much should I hate Helen. And I don’t. They’re perpetrators but they’re also survivors. It’s not black and white.
There are definite echoes of Morrison and Zora Neale Hurston, but it is much more ragged, raw and brutal and it never has the sun break free of the clouds.
It’s a very well-written book, but it’s a not for me book.
A Girl Named Tommi 