I thought I would enjoy this book (Porny Stories by Eva Moran) more than I actually did. While the book blurb called her a modern-day Woody Allen, I thought she was more in the Fran Lebowitz line. I think more than anything it felt a bit too repetitive; Donald Barthelme wrote up a few fake quizzes but it was only a small part of his oeuvre, whereas roughly half or more of these pieces are fake Cosmo-style quizzes. And it just seems like Moran is shooting fish in a barrel again and again. Cosmopolitan Magazine quizzes have been mocked for decades, and often the writers do dig into the self-loathing (on the part of single ladies) that enables them in the first place. What is a bit different is just how sexually explicit many of the pieces are, but, in this day and age, nothing's shocking.
In truth, the only piece that I really liked (without reservations) was a very short story called "Julius Caesar: A Play Review." It starts out with a high school student attending a "uber-pc" First Nations interpretation of Julius Caesar (perhaps like the Crows' Nest fake-out earlier in the season should have been). She complains a bit that the author shouldn't have killed off the title character so early. But she was really at the play to spy on Margaret Atwood, who she deeply admires. She doesn't hesitate to say that "I definitely do not think she's 'old.' I see her another way. ... So beyond time and the age thing."
She then imagines a scenario where after death you arrive at the Pearly Gates and St. Peter asks you the last book you read. "You answer with dignified dignity, 'Bear.' " And presto, you're riding a chute to Hell. "You barely have time to gasp, 'But it won the Governor's General Award!'"* St. Peter calls after you, saying that you should have read The Handmaid's Tale. (Given The Handmaid's Tale's clear attack on the misogynistic aspects of so many religions and their insistence on controlling women's reproductive lives, this does seem an unusual vote of confidence in the book...)
The narrator then follows Atwood around at the reception after the play where she takes one of everything from the buffet, then vanishes. The narrator imagines she is in the washroom and imagines discovering her there and becoming bosom buddies with the Queen of CanLit. (As one more amusing aside, the play is premiering at Buddies in Bad Times!)
The review ends, "Yeah, Julius Caesar's good. But Margaret Atwood, now she's cool." Hard to argue with that. I've seen her a few times in person, and it's always a bit of a thrill.
I wish Moran had written a lot more along these lines and included far fewer mocking Cosmo reader quiz pieces. But then I guess her collection wouldn't have had such a hook, merited or not.
* And indeed, more than one blog has tackled the incongruity of that... I also wrote about this in my review of Bear a while back.
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