The Dead Ladies Project

Posted on 03 January 2017 by Jessa Crispin

When Jessa Crispin was thirty, she burned her settled Chicago life to the ground and took off for Berlin with a pair of suitcases and no plan beyond leaving Half a decade later, she s still on the road, in search not so much of a home as of understanding, a way of being in the world that demands neither constant struggle nor complete surrender The Dead Ladies Project is an account of that journey but it s also much, much Fascinated by exile, Crispin travels an itinerary of key locations in its literary map, of places that have drawn writers who needed to break free from their origins and start afresh As she reflects on William James struggling through despair in Berlin, Nora Barnacle dependant on and dependable for James Joyce in Trieste, Maud Gonne fomenting revolution and fostering myth in Dublin, or Igor Stravinsky starting over from nothing in Switzerland, Crispin interweaves biography, incisive literary analysis, and personal experience into a rich meditation on the complicated interactions of place, personality, and society that can make escape and reinvention such an attractive, even intoxicating proposition Personal and profane, funny and fervent, The Dead Ladies Project ranges from the nineteenth century to the present, from historical figures to brand new hangovers, in search, ultimately, of an answer to a bedrock question How does a person decide how to live their life New Read The Dead Ladies Project by Jessa Crispin For Kindle ePUB or eBook – kino-fada.fr I picked this up in a newly opened independent bookstore in my area, and when the owner of the store saw it in my hands, she expressed her enthusiastic appreciation for Jessa Crispin She s a smartie, she said But honestly, I wasn t so sure I had never warmed to Crispin s website, Bookslut, even though it should have been exactly the kind of thing I loved I always had a sense that Crispin s work was hobbled by her trying too hard to be the smartest person in the room I hate saying that abo I picked this up in a newly opened independent bookstore in my area, and when the owner of the store saw it in my hands, she expressed her enthusiastic appreciation for Jessa Crispin She s a smartie, she said But honestly, I wasn t so sure I had never warmed to Crispin s website, Bookslut, even though it should have been exactly the kind of thing I loved I always had a sense that Crispin s work was hobbled by her trying too hard to be the smartest person in the room I hate saying that about any writer, and especially a female writer, but it was a feeling I just couldn t shake But I bought The Dead Ladies Project anyway, and after a few stops and starts unrelated to the book s quality, I am thrilled to be able to tell you that I was totally and completely wrong abo...I ve been a Crispin fan girl since discovering her blog, Bookslut, several years ago She has unearthed many treasures for me from the back catalogues of the 20th century, probably most significantly Rebecca West s Black Lamb, Grey Falcon which features in this book , but numerous other books as well Her recommendation of Baba Yaga Laid an Egg led me to Ugresic s fascinating work It s no exaggeration to say that without Crispin my reading list would be farmainstream and less rich her I ve been a Crispin fan girl since discovering her blog, Bookslut, several years ago She has unearthed many treasures for me from the back catalogues of the 20th century, probably most significantly Rebecca West s Black Lamb, Grey Falcon which features in this book , but numerous other books as well Her recommendation of Baba Yaga Laid an Egg led me to Ugresic s fa... displaced and shaken from birth I am not surprised this author has never exactly seemed to fit in Being the weirdo in the room is what she says she is used to But she defiantly prefers to reject them before they rejected you But this sophisticated and crazy spinster outsider manages to make me want to be led on a walk with her like a cat on a leash Jessa Crispin, in just one published book, has surpassed Geoff Dyer on my favorite memoir travelo displaced and shaken from birth I am not surprised this author has never exactly seemed to fit in Being the weirdo in the room...Suicidal impulses were starting to get the better of Crispin, so she knew it was time to get out of town Because that s what you do when you re a writer you design a project you can publish and get paid for, and at the same time try to save your own damn life Thus begins a story about travel, famous dead creatives, and getting your shit together Oddly enough, it works.Not that isn t rough going, especially at first Crispin is not very likable, but she doesn t give two shits whether you like Suicidal impulses were starting to get the better of Crispin, so she knew it was time to get out of town Because that s what you do when you re a writer you design a project you can publish and get paid for, and at the same time try to save your own damn life Thus begins a story about travel, famous dead creatives, and getting your shit together Oddly enough, it works.Not that isn t rough going, especially at first Crispin is not very likable, but she doesn t give two shits whether you like her or not Also, she tells a damn compelling story Keep in mind that this is a woman looking to the dead for reasons to live and you ll find reason enough to stick with it Plus, you ll learn some cool stuff about people you thought you knew Nora Barnacle, Maud Gonne and some you might not have heard of Claude Cahun, Margaret Anderson As ...I wanted to like this book a lotthan I did.But that s unfair I did like it, most of the way through For most of the book it was one of those I ll have to get my own copy after I return it to the library books And then it wasn t Crispin writes very well and has read widely and with great consideration though as another reviewer notes, her choices tend to the dead white canon She obviously thinks deeply about what she reads, the lives of the authors, and her surroundings Those thou ...Okay, let s come right out and say that there were a few parts where I had to mentally separate the author as the author from the author as my sister, to sort of ignore that this is my childhood she s alluding to here, my hometown, me But those parts were mercifully small I will go back and process those parts later, though I m not sure Jessa would want me to Anyway, biased or not, I thought it was marvelous Especially the Berlin chapter, which despite there being an actual introduction i Okay, let s come right out and say that there were a few parts where I had to mentally separate the author as the author from the author as my sister, to sort of ignore that this is my childhood she s all...A really insightful exploration of art, self, love, and Europe Engaging, relatively well written, melancholic, and an ode to the artists who influenced the author and the places that influenced them.Jessa Crispin s writing style is bland, slow, and mundane at best At worst is is painfully dull and laced with failed attempts at insight and clever remarks This book is a story of a woman who likes to read and name drop but doesn t add insight or humor, a story of ...I didn t like the politics of Jessa Crispin as she wrote them a lot, insistently into this book Her bitterness, about the world at large and her own life, irritated me, particularly in her chapter about Jean Rhys Structurally the book was often a mess, not really holding as a whole And yet This writer is truly gifted with this particular strangeness of her voice, this enchanting metaphysical worldview she has, where she sees dragons flying in a city she dislikes, and has wonderful conversa I didn t like the politics of Jessa Crispin as she wrote them a lot, insistently into this book Her bitterness, about the world at large and her own life, irritated me, particularly in her chapter about Jean Rhys Structurally the book was often a mess, not really holding as a whole And yet This writer is truly gifted with this particular strangeness of her voice, this enchanting metaphysical worldview she has, where she sees dragons flying in a city she dislikes, and has wonderful conversations with the dead ladies, and gentlemen as well Crispin s mind is a wayward one in a way that surprised me in many delightful ways I never knew what to expect from her in the next paragraph and often it wasn t just because I think the book wasn t sufficiently thought through, but also because her associations are so fresh I know she s quite young, and her youth shows in the angry, somewhat superficial way in which ...Brilliant

English
03 January 2017

Jessa Crispin