Cover Stories: They Is Us by Tama Janowitz
I walk into a bookshop and wander, wide-eyed like a kid in a candystore. A book cover catches my eye. I buy. An adventure into an unknown literary land – who said you should never judge a book by its cover?
Having been suckered in by the cover and being more than a little fond of dystopian literature, I wanted to like this book. I really did. And the strange this is, I think I liked it but can’t be sure. My response to They Is Us was more than a little ambiguous: I found it frustrating, but couldn’t put it down; I thought it was gimmicky, but still found myself chuckling; I even sent angry text messages to a friend about it… and then recommended it to someone else.
Set in an America of the future and touted as ‘A Cautionary Horror Story’, They Is Us is about the domestic (dysfunctional family), the global (eco-disasters, political shifts), the surreal (spliced genetic creations, a talking dog) and the very, very bleak (a world rapidly falling apart). So far, so Atwood. I couldn’t help but feel ideas had been lifted from Margaret Atwood‘s work (notably Oryx and Crake), with Janowitz hoping that literary eccentricities alone would make her book stand out. They Is Us is a lively and imaginative read, but it tries a bit too hard and I sometimes found it difficult to see past the barrage of quirky ideas.
Which brings me to the question: how quirky is too quirky? Old people with saggy tattoos arguing over whether they should do aerobics to Soft Cell or ‘Too Drunk to Fuck’ by the Dead Kennedys? Labia stretching procedures at a company called ‘Shrimp Chip’? A gay President who delivers his press conferences with shirt off and chest buffed? That’s not to say the book is all frivolity. It does look at the gulf between rich and poor, the danger of playing God with science, religious unrest and the strain that we’re placing on the planet and future generations. Nor is it to say that the frivolity is a bad thing – the humour draws you in and provokes a reaction – it’s just my reaction to it swung wildly between laugh out loud and throwing the book on the floor in frustration.
But the story is centred on one family and it’s here that Janowitz is strongest. She gives us some curious and well-written characters, particularly in Julie and Tahnee, two young sisters who respond to their environment in very different ways. The relationships between the girls and with their mother, their absent father and the peripheral characters are what kept me hooked; there’s something incredibly moving about having recognisable family situations underpin the absurdity of a failing world.
Tama Janowitz is often listed alongside Bret Easton Ellis and Jay McInerney as a ‘Brat Pack’ author, and has achieved cult success for satirising the dark side of American society. She is certainly a skillful writer, but so much in They Is Us rests on a very particular sense of humour that there’s a danger of losing the reader. Having said all of that, do I recommend this book? Sure. Whether you’re a fan of dystopian fiction, want to read something a bit different or just like the idea of a High School named after Robert Downey Jr, it’s worth picking up – and then let us know what you thought!
This edition, published by The Friday Project in 2009, comes with ‘supplementary material’ and you can get it on Amazon for just £3.96!
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Post by Alex Herod
What do you think?