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Anahita Safarzadeh

Book Review

What Happened Was By Katharine Haake

by on October 2, 2024

Katherine Haake’s What Happened Was captures the unsettling atmosphere of a post-apocalyptic world, a feeling that resonates profoundly in the aftermath of the 2019 pandemic. While Americans may have experienced the crisis with the comforts of modern living, Haake’s narrative reminds us that our version of the pandemic may have dulled our awareness of the true horrors felt globally.

“Someone turned the television news on to drown out the sounds of their whining, but no calamity on earth could compare now to our own.”

In her signature style, Haake delves into the mundane, transforming everyday moments into scenes of profound disturbance, reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. The book, set in what I imagine in the present or leading up to it, immerses readers in the grim reality of growing up and aging in America, namely Los Angeles. Through a blend of science fiction and literary chaos, Haake’s “accounts” in the first part of the book leave readers with the haunting sense that, despite glimpsing a harsh truth, we are left knowing very little.

“That was the first thing we learned, but not the last, after they sent us away removed of everything, all the way down to our numbers.”

Haake also plays with language, questioning the very structure of communication. The narrator’s rediscovery of lost words feels less like forgetting and more like losing a vital organ. This loss of linguistic depression underscores the broader disconnection that Haake explores with depth and nuance.


“It’s a flower, she said, the italics all hers, as if otherwise it might have been a railroad or rhinoceros.”

A powerful undercurrent of loss permeates the book, particularly around themes of motherhood and aging. Though I have not experienced parenthood, Haake’s exploration of the void left by children leaving home — and the simultaneous aging of parents — struck a deeply emotional chord. Despite not being a parent, I felt the void left by the departure of “the boys” and the subsequent ennui that Haake portrays. Her exploration of the human condition is both relatable and thought-provoking.

“We want it to be known that we did everything we could. We were vigilant and thorough. We tried home remedies and discipline, a regular routine, counseling, prayer. We watched over as she slept. And while it could be said we loved her — she was our very own — when the vapors started trialing on the whistling of her dreambreath and the barking never stopped the whole night through, we knew — we just knew — what we had to do.”

Nostalgia is a prominent theme throughout What Happened Was. Haake deftly captures the ordinary moments we take for granted, from a simple text message to milk in our morning coffee, and makes them feel distant and unreachable by the book’s end. The hints of metaphorical aliens emphasize a profound sense of disconnection to parts of our world.

“If we still believed in writing, that’s what we would write. We would write about the aliens inside. That’s what hope is like. It’s like writing.”

Structurally, the book accelerated like a fever dream, leaving the reader disoriented yet captivated. The pacing intensifies as the stories spiral into chaos, and “interregnum” becomes a recurring motif, symbolizing the gaps in history and time that are more terrifying for what is left unsaid.

“There wasn’t so much that remained, but all that remained was there, where we were, and by the time we convened we had begun to understand this. The portals had all been so efficient, everything gone down them — gone, gone.”

“A child — the last child — spoke first. Now what are we going to do?”

In a broader historical context, the stories seem to emerge from the void between the pandemic and the present. The “interregnum” itself becomes a character, shaping the narrative and highlighting the small, often overlooked aspects of life that can have lasting impacts.

“Of all the times to go off on a cruise, right at the height of the interregnum. And really, at their age, we think.”

“But we don’t really mean it.”

“Here’s what we really mean: Well: here we are, two hapless orphans all alone on the planet. Now what are we going to do?”

What Happened Was is a challenging yet rewarding read, urging readers to question whether to view these moments with lightness or through a lens of trauma. In the wake of the pandemic, Haake’s work resonates with a sense of “after-ness” that I for one, am still grappling with as we navigate this new reality.

What Happened Was is available now through 11:11 Press

Book Review

The Book of Anna

by on November 12, 2020

If there is any significance in taking a novel of eight parts and proceeding it with a five part metatheatrical sequel, it is to show that length and history do not make a novel. Instead, imagine the waves of reaction and retelling passing between generations and finally into the hands of writers who take the liberty to create and recreate without shame or fear of traditionalists’ view of text. Leo Tolstoy’s Anna is often negotiated by the temporal and spatial definitions of woman at the time of reproduction. In Carmen Boullosa’s The Book of Anna, one may call into the question the boundaries of a sequel. Boullosa text, and the incredible translation by Samantha Schnee, stretch beyond the imagination by infusing historical references, magic realism, literary criticism, and metatheatricality to spin the yarn of its archetype to gives readers and women a version which we might be able to look at with more than contempt and see a possible outcome more closely aligned with our reality of feminism. 

Although I have never been a fan of disclosures, Boullosa’s novel begins with an explanation of the book. Tolstoy’s Anna writes a manuscript which is referenced once then thrown by the sidelines. Here, through her descendants, the work is finally able to come to light – but more than the work, the legacy she leaves behind for her children is something which Boullosa finds might have greater significance than her adultery and suicide. The explanation is also a wonderfully shameless way of giving readers a pass at first needing to read or reread the 864 page predecessor. 

Unlike the novels from the 18th century, Boullosa highlights the lives of every social class and pits their lives side by side. The novel opens with a vagabond attempting to bomb a train, a nod to Tolstoy’s novel which tickles the idea of breaking away from canon and promoting a new interpretation of femininity. Rather than focusing on Annas suicide by train, here we get Clementine’s desire to destroy a train – and whatever it may represent for each reader. 

Over and over, the characters are juxtaposed against each other through life and death or dreams and reality, “In Claudia’s dream, she exchanges glances with Sergei. In Sergei’s dream, they don’t. But in both dreams Sergei reflects: ‘But I am not completely human. And you know that better than anyone: I am a fictional creation, part of an imaginary drama”. These words are said to a dream version of Tolstoy who is haunting the characters subconsciously as they attempt to decide throughout the novel whether or not to give a painting of Anna to the New Hermitage. I am in awe of the psychological and traumatic retelling of characters like Sergei – to show how much they are aware of their own existence only in terms of their story is something I’m sure many fear before walking into the cold arms of existentialism. 

Some of the more meta sections of the novel revolve around Sergei, the son of Anna Karenina. Boullosa maps out for readers each moment and distinction one should make in order to understand the characters as fiction and nonfiction. Sergei exists but he also exists as a fictional character, “Sergei occupies the very same seat that his mother did…It’s like a menacing cloud that burns and asphyxiates him.” I see in these lines something reflective. A technique of writing which can oftentimes be taken to one extreme while craving the other. Poor Sergei is haunted by his past but by participating in society he is also haunted by his existence and is constantly swimming through anxiety made more evident with the block texts that are dedicated to explanation why Sergei is the way he is. 

I find that by highlighting the women in the novel as a sort of force to be reckoned with, while leaving Sergei as a sort of manchild, is just beautifully hilarious. So many female protagonists are silenced, especially in classic literature, and here too the men of the novel try to silence them again. Boullosa won’t let them. She gives the women a voice in the way they dress, the way they refuse to feel sorry for themselves, the way they manipulate their husbands carefully to act in a way they find favorable. 

If there was anything to dislike about The Book of Anna it may well be the length because when I finished it I actually said, That’s it? I wanted more, and I feel most readers will as well. There is not much closure in the novel and that in itself is a sort of rejection of the stereotypical novel and also a rejection of many of the interpretations of Anna Karenina. 

The Book of Anna is available now through Coffee House Press.

Book Review

You & Me Forever

by on August 18, 2020

Chaos, lies, and raw emotion battle one another, composing and decomposing organically to create the heavy words strung together in Valerie Hsiung’s You & Me Forever. A work which transcends the barriers of a title of contents page and throws tradition under the bus of nostalgia. Memories alter page by page, making readers question their own experiences in youth as if self deception is a character in the story of our lives. Tradition, raunch culture, religion, origin story and sexual harassment mold into the textbook of an elementary school child and we are transported back to the world only our repression can find.

Written in sections of “Book One” , or “Postscript”, the poems wreak havoc on the mind and transport readers into the strange world of being literally lost in thought. This form of revisionism lends the text to become an art form in multiple layers and works as a performance. There have been certain moments when one can feel certain of relative trauma in text. You feel, I feel, they feel. We can all empathize or sympathize and wonder and relate. But there are times when a person comes across words on a page, and while remaining a hundred percent sure that they just read about rape, abandonment, or the unavoidable lies which come with ancestry, one may not notice the significance of the trauma. Valerie Hsiung’s work functions as a coping mechanism in both structure and content. From the words on the page to how they settle on the paper, meaning is woven into memory. Playing around with sentences and repetition like no one before her, Hsuing’s poems twist popular culture by recycling phrases and lyrics to make different meanings from them, as if putting together a ransom note from newspaper clippings.

Without giving away too much of herself, Hsuing uses ancestry to connect readers to the work in a way that’s relatable like parents lying about the origins of the child’s name, or a small exaggeration of a childhood event. Something so innocent that later becomes the foundation for a life of trauma.  While the first section, “Book One” delves into the youth of the narrator, the rest of the work jumps around memories of pain and confusion through events which have been altered by time. Hsuing’s use of italics showcases the mastery of intonation and how the way you say something affects the meaning,“They said the mind-the soul-die too/but only after the body.” 

There is a back and forth play between nature and technology at times, “I lick and lap at the magnetic water, become a part of the magnet.” As the narrator discovers a mutiny of self, a battle between memory and reality proceeds and the carnal animal or beast of the narrator becomes the driving force of the work. Violation is a lubricant for timeless emotion and poetry. And here also, the pain and violence in the poems are written with a sense of fragility and lightness that readers may at some points wonder, did we just skip something deep or was it meant to be so fleeting? 

More than once did a hand raise and a yelp come from my mouth as I joined in unity with the text, ME TOO! I wanted to shout, but had to keep reading each lasting word like I was starving. Hsuing introduces old ideas and creates their counter-positives, “In ancient times, rape was as common as wild was common. So, abduction, and the two – rape and abduction – often went hand in hand. These are common themes.” And immediately after this we read a section on the double standards portrayed onto Hera and Zues. But there is an almost existential nonchalant way in which the allegories are written. To see rape, then follow with “List of youngest birth mothers.” and no context behind it stands out as poetry that asks the reader to do work – which is brilliant. 

Unlike the grit that often comes with trauma poetry, the work here even goes as far as to reclaim “discharge” as something natural and feminine rather than grotesque or medical, “It was easy to carry the box that held her remaining life to the rented room in the abyss where the tree leaked its discharge…In this place, there were trees, mucosal intonations, and unprotected intonations, a vast, endless gamut, with trees, with trees, upon which she was only one of countless sentences.” The heartbreak I still echo while rereading the words in You & Me Forever is something I will cherish each time I have to call my parents grudgingly, or explain myself to an authority figure, or even explain myself to myself. Even in its final section, Hsuing manages to throw tradition in the air and writes the typical “acknowledgements” section of a book but instead of thanking names, she lists moments which have affected her in putting together this work. It’s almost like saying, yes thank you to all my friends and family for shaping me into this creature, or thank you for giving me the trauma and pain to put together this raw perspective of my life. 

You & Me Forever is available now through Action Books.

Book Review

The Book of Scab

by on May 14, 2020

Written by Danielle Pafunda
Review by Anahita Safarzadeh

Dear Ugly Little Scab – we see you, we feel you, you are not alone. As the chronically ill Scab manifests within her passages, so do shared realities with a psychedelic twist. Danielle Pafunsa’s The Book of Scab makes what could be classified as nightmarish acid trips. Written as letters addressed to “Mom and Dad”, Pafunda opens the floor for ownership and for vulnerability as she traces through her adolescence and forces readers to experience the uncomfortability of sex and drugs which have so heavily influence the upbringing of little Scab. 

Fully equipped with the weaponry of a run-on sentence, Pafunda tells a tale much like the myths and legends of our ancestors. “I give his father the keys to your cars I give his father a bottle of your black label Jack Daniels I give his father some of the pornos I found in the ravine just in case he likes that kind of thing.” Something old and somehting new, Pafunda combines the nostalgia of the past generations who exhalted sex drugs and rock and roll while also being reminicient of what it was to like to be a child looking in on their parents confused or unaware. 

Something full of true grit, while still maintaining what is unique about our generation – music, sexual freedom, and a little bit of LSD. Although mysterious and out of place with time, the small essays between each parental letter has true depth. Using techniques such as alliteration to create a melody even if the chorus is made up of “bitch” and “fuck”. Spilling out of inanimate objects, little scab explores the landscape of her memories, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

“Between my ribs there are failings, and in my lungs there is a swollen crown of pollen spurs. It’s the only thing natural about me. I cough, and my bad taste wheezes out.”

To say one is reminded of Candy Man would be an understatement. The creature living within the passages of this novel has experienced pain, yes, but beyond that she is in pain and she see’s even her bodily fluids as evidence of her life as consequence. Consequence to what, to living, to existing, or consequence to being born into a body which others see as an object 

One is reminded of the magical realism of Latinx writing, an exotic tale of twisted stories. People turning into animals, love turning into puking in a bush. Is this all an acid trip, are our lives one nightmarish ride which has stops meant to wake us up. Using rose petals to dab blood from cuts made into the skin to write words. An expression of art and storytelling as a way of giving life from trauma. The Book of Scab dares to execute what many have only fantasized about. 

In certain moments readers are able to get a glimpse of what is real and what is not, then the proverbial rug is pulled from us, our trip guide wanders off, and again we are left alone to address the motives behind the hurtful actions of our friends and families. Each scenario, although unique to the Scab, relates to minority and female upbringing. Moments which have always existed and never been challenged are now written against a bourgeoise backdrop. 

Pafunda constantly uses shared realities to expose moments of sexual assault which have gone to make scabs of us all. Candy and fruit as a way to numb the pain and outrage of sexual assault, or lack there of. A showcase of extreme cruelty and unforgiving abandonment leading to a lifelong need to fill a void. The novella freudian tactics sewn into childlike dreams and adult-like realities. Midway through Scab begins to recognize why she did certain horrible things to others, but only after she is left awkwardly craving attention from men who have inappropriately attacked other women, “I ruin everything, don’t I, when I go looking for attention.”

There is a sexual narrative carefully told throughout the novel. Something which allows readers to connect the otherwise seemingly different essays, letters, and passages. A scab is a wound healing, but this scab keeps breaking open, like zooming into the Mandelbrot set. But there is also a narrative of an outsider which could be glossed over if not read with more open mindedness. “My rights are alienable. That I hold onto them for the time being is material….All my privileges are plenty suckled up around me at night in the bed when I dream of getting out of here.” Pafunda begs the question of identity and passing. Are we all unhinged corpses walking around in our skin suits absorbing the world around us, letting the world around us absorb us in turn? 

The Book of Scab is available now through Ricochet Editions.