Review - Odd Girl Revisited by Artemis Smith

Reviewed by Mel Keegan

How often have you heard it said (and doubted it), life is stranger than fiction?

ODD GIRL REVISITED by Artemis Smith is probably the proof of the old adage -- for if this were not an autobiographical work, in which the details pertinent to the first segment -- the backstory of Ms. Smith’s childhood -- would be easily verifiable, you would have to rank it as one of the most extravagant social melodramas of the century just gone, full of crowned heads, two out of the three True Faith religions in head-on collision, the most exotic of locations, from Paris to Rome to the dark cities of Scandinavia, and the fortunes of individuals and noble households caught up in both war and the cultural upheaval out of which the twentieth century was forged.

And all this, in the first 20 pages … not counting the footnotes, of which there are … a lot. (I do have a minor problem with footnotes in a work of this kind. The asides and remarks seem, to me, to belong in the text. They are like the marginal notes one makes for incorporation in the next, or last, draft. Footnotes are most definitely the author’s fancy, however … as if she has hit the pause button and turned to the reader to interject some juicy tidbit which was, for some reason, blue-pencilled from the project. Who knows how the minds of editors work?)

The work is very personal, and told with an almost desiccated humor which I’m sure I’m not imagining, and which I fear will skip right over the heads of most modern readers without even disturbing the hair -- which is regrettable, since the humor helps humanize a work which deals with a multitude of characters and locations which, at the outset, change with every breath, while the “plot twists” oscillate between the Parisienne café culture, the Roman art studio and post-war New York. 

If this were a movie … it would have to be a mini-series. The settings are exotic indeed, and one wishes more could have been written along the way, amplifying the names, dates, situations, which are conveyed in a shorthand which, though far more articulate than one expects of literature in this day and age, is stripped of almost all human detail. Many times, the stage seems set for what would be an utterly engrossing narrative, if only the author would, for a few pages, paint on the wider canvas … write of those exotic historical (pre-war) locations, put us into them, make us see, hear and feel the world in which these characters -- in fact, Ms. Smith's ancestors! -- lived, worked, fought.

Survive the first 20pp, and the book shifts gears, entering a more modern scenario, leaving the European settings, and moving to the United States. The humor I perceive is razor sharp;  the story of an individual rather than a wide, freewheeling cast of characters, is often easier to focus on, but you may want to keep an encyclopaedia handy. Not being an American, many references to American events, persons and politicking, especially of an era before I was born, found little familiarity with me. Smart enough to know I was missing a good deal, I looked up some of the references! However, as a reviewer, I must wonder which readers out there in the modern audience will do this. Foreign readers will be head-scratching at the American references, while American readers will miss many of the European ones. Research is the solution; but readers have become notoriously lazy.

ODD GIRL REVISITED is a work of rare scholarship -- so much so that it’s not the “easy read” the mass market is looking for these days. It’s a window on a world which is gone, and the savvy reader’s brows will be popping up in many places, for many reasons. (For example, Ms. Smith mentions selling her first “mass market” paperback, c1959, for something in the order of  US$1,000, which was considered a paltry sum. By today’s standards, this was in fact a vast amount to be paid for a pulp work -- or indeed, any work. It was a decent percentage of the annual wage of the day, while modern pulp writers are paid a tiny fraction of this, by ratio to the current median wage. So, as you can see, ODD GIRL REVISITED is as much an invaluable glimpse into its times as into the lives and hearts of gay/Gay girls who grew up in the decades before most of us were born.)

The strength of the book is in its “realness.” And I know that’s not a word; but it’s what I want to say. The people, places and events in this book are real. Fantastic as it seems (and the first 20pp, the backstory of the author’s childhood, do seem more in keeping with a big-budget HBO Movie of the Week!) these events took place. As the Chinese curse goes, “May you live in interesting times.”

Later, the book includes a collection of letters which reinforce the realness of the times, the hardships; and we gain a painful, illuminating insight into the realities of living with mental illness, as the author describes caring for, and loving, a partner whose intellectual brilliance and mental instability apparently rode in tandem. This kind of pain transcends national boundaries, gender identities, time frames.

And this later section of the book became fascinating to me in a different way from Ms. Smith’s probable intention. One of my personal interests is the history of gay publishing. A social portrait of growing up and being gay in the twentieth century is always of fascination. It takes an odd case (like myself -- always thinking on the tangent) to have a sub-sub-category of interest, which makes my antennae rotate when the subject shifts to publishing in this genre.

Yet again the focus changes, as the author grapples with the packaging and reception of her work, and she evolves logically from this to grapple with the issue of human rights -- of which women’s rights and gay rights are in fact merely a sub-set. This has been my own philosophy for thirty years and more, and on page 73 I stood up, put down the BeBook, and cheered.

There is more in the book, but no more space in this review! On many levels, I recommend ODD GIRL REVISITED as a scholarly presentation. The windows which creak open on the 1950s and 1960s are invaluable. If nothing else, those first 20pp might come as a rude awakening to some readers who assume they possess half an education of events outside American shores and prior to their own lives! Grab your encyclopaedia , kids. You’ll need it as often as I -- not an American -- needed to check the references to the events, places, persons and politics of your country.

In fact (and I regret to say this) the book is not at all for the casual reader. Today’s average reader will certainly need to keep not merely an encyclopaedia to hand, but also a dictionary, since the manner of the writing is so scholarly. Constant reference is made to social and cultural dimensions which are most likely far beyond the grasp of a casual reader with an average education. One hopes this book offers a priceless opportunity for the broadening of perspectives and horizons.

I do feel that a little background and foundation under the work might have buttressed it against the difficult audience to which it must play in 2011. A development of the historical and social scenes of pre-war Europe and post-war New York would have been most welcome to this reader, and might perhaps have made it more accessible to casual readers browsing the gay shelves. ODD GIRL REVISITED by Artemis Smith is launching at this time, around Christmas 2010, and will inevitably be shelved as a gay/Gay memoire (which is accurate), and consequently rubbing shoulders with the more easily read autobiographies of community figures and celebrities. Find it cozying up to John Barrowman in the Autobiographies/Gay, or the Gay/Autobiographies section … now, there's a chalk and cheese categorization!

Recommended for the well-read; for the reader who isn’t using the encylopaedia to prop up the DVD stand; for the writer researching the period -- with or without any interest in gay culture of the twentieth century. Ideally suited to the American social and cultural studies, and of great interest as a window on the recent past. Also should catch the attention of executives at HBO, who might easily be captivated with the first 20pp, buy the movie rights and never even read the rest of the book! (One can see it now, starring Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, Sam Neill and Viggo Mortensen...)

Publication and ordering details: 

(Bookstores should order directly from LightningSource.com;  individuals can order online from Amazon and BN)

ISBN 978-1-878998-38-5   6x9 paperback  $34.95  retail

Also available in two 5x8 mass market paperback editions:

The Correlate (the Memoir)  ISBN 978-1-878998-35-4  $10  retail

ODD GIRL Restored (the Novel)  ISBN 978-1-878998-34-7   $16.95  retail

ALSO AVAILABLE ON-LINE FROM AMAZON.COM IN KINDLE AND BN.COM IN NOOK eBOOK EDITIONS:

ArtemisSmith's ODD GIRL Restored, ArtemisSmith's THE THIRD SEX, ArtemisSmith's THIS BED WE MADE and now also all three volumes of ArtemisSmith's The SKEETS Triptych

ALSO OF INTEREST TO THE GLBT COMMUNITY:  Whether Religious or Agnostic or Atheist, everyone should read ArtemisSmith's ATHEIST MANIFESTO:a unified scientist's creed. Available as a $3 ebook download from Nook or Kindle. It provides a satisfying common-ground solution that may bring everyone together on the substitution of 'Truth' rather than 'God' as the ultimate object of worship and desire.